Hungry Ghosts
by Aeschylus Rex
Summary: AU - The year is 1980. Fresh out of nursing school, Santana Lopez moves to the Bay Area and accepts a position in the ICU at San Francisco General Hospital. She is awed by the progressive, 'free love' culture of California, but the glamor quickly fades when the hospital is sucked into a mysterious health crisis affecting the area's vibrant gay community. [full summary inside]
1. Prologue

_6.16.15_

 _Hi folks,_

 _Okay, so maybe I got a little excited and started posting this project too early, but I just couldn't help myself. Inspiration is a fickle mistress, and sometimes you have to roll with it. This is me rolling with it._

 _This story was inspired by a documentary called 'We Were Here'. If you want to know more about the beginning of the AIDS crisis, I highly recommend it, although I will warn you, it's upsetting. For the sake of realism and historical accuracy, this Prologue contains word-for-word excerpts of several interviews from that film. I have woven them seamlessly into the dialogue, so of course, credit where credit is due. I have no desire to plagiarize content._

 _Alright, well, here we go! I look forward to hearing from ya'll._ _Tell me what you think!_

 _Peace,_

 _-Rex_

* * *

 _ **reference material** : Milk (2008); We Were Here (2011); The Normal Heart (2014)_

 _ **summary** : The year is 1980. Fresh out of nursing school, Santana Lopez moves in with her relatives in the Bay Area and accepts a position in the ICU at San Francisco General Hospital. The California coast is bright and exciting, it's populace still celebrating the triumphs of the sexual revolution, but her wonder is short lived. A storm is brewing under the surface. A rare form of skin cancer, Kaposi Sarcoma (KS) has made a sudden, disturbing appearance amongst the young, male populace of San Francisco's gay community, and men are dropping like flies. The media is calling it gay cancer, but nobody has any answers. SFGH is a warzone, the list of obituaries in the Bay Area Reporter grows every week, and everyone is scared. In the middle of it all, Santana finds herself inextricably involved in the lives of her patients, in particular,Tyler Pierce, and his enigmatic, eccentric younger sister, Brittany. _

* * *

**Prologue**

"Mr. Anderson?"

"Yes."

"Are you alright?"

"I…need a minute."

"We can stop here for today if you're tired. Maybe pick up where we left off tomorrow?"

Blaine closed his glassy, red eyes and resisted the urge to turn away from the camera. His fingers twitched in his lap, but he held them there, locked together, steady and tight. He had already rubbed his stage makeup away twice, forcing them to stop the taping and do touch ups. The room collectively held its breath as he struggled in the stiff, leather armchair. They would wait for his signal. They had been very understanding so far. After a few moments had passed he straightened up, cleared his throat, and blinked furiously to hold the moisture back.

"I'm okay."

"Is the light too bright?"

He sucked in a shuddering breath and composed himself. "No, it's fine."

Across from him, the reporter scribbled some notes in her spiral-bound notebook, a tall, waify redhead with a rash of freckles stamped across her nose, wearing her hair in a styled messy bun and thick, horn-rimmed glasses. "Are you ready to continue with the interview."

Blaine cleared his throat again. "Yes."

"Are you sure?" She smiled kindly. "Do you need any water?"

"Maybe a little," he admitted, shifting awkwardly, crossing his legs first one way, and then the other, without managing to find a comfortable position.

She signalled to her crew and a moment later a cold, plastic bottle was pressed into his hand.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I'm sorry, I'm not normally a crier…" He unscrewed the cap.

"It's alright." The reporter, Erica, smiled. "In case you haven't noticed, my cameraman has been sniffling all morning." She glanced over her shoulder at a chubby fellow in a red polo who appeared suddenly very interested in his equipment. "I know you know don't have a cold, Barry."

"Allergies," the man replied smoothly.

Blaine chuckled and drank his water, running fingers that were just a little bit tougher through slicked back, salt and pepper hair. She waited for him to finish, as he placed the bottle on the persian rug, next to the chair, waited for him to adjust his bow tie and straighten the collar of his blue, oxford shirt. It was a ritual of his. It calmed him, and all these years later the routine had become so ingrained that his hands strayed toward his neck whenever he was nervous, regardless of his chosen attire. He often remembered only as his fingers were brushing bare skin around his clavicle that he had worn a tank top or a t-shirt that day.

"Where were we…?" Erica tapped the end of a blue pen against her lips, eyebrows furrowed, scanning quickly through her notes.

Blaine cleared his throat, and knotted his hands again, waiting patiently.

"Oh, we were talking about your partner."

"...Yes."

The reporter glanced up from her notebook. "He died."

Blaine cleared his throat. "He did."

Something flickered behind her eyes, just beyond reach. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Erica chewed on her pen for a quiet moment, eyes drifting back and forth across his face as though she were reading words on a page, line by line. She brushed an errant lock of strawberry red hair over one ear and seemed to make a decision. The pen tapped against her notebook.

"Let's talk about you."

"Okay." Blaine's smile was tight. "What about me?"

"You moved here from rural Texas after you graduated from high school."

"I did."

"What made you choose California?"

He sucked in a quiet breath. "I guess I always knew I was gonna come out to San Francisco. I think a lot of us came out here because we didn't quite fit where we were. I mean, how do you explain to your father, the good Christian man who's lived in Abilene his whole life, that you don't want to take a girl to the high school prom? That you'd rather take the ranch hand he just hired?" Blaine grimaced. "You just...you don't. You don't tell him that. You move to the city, and you don't tell him that."

"Were you scared?"

He settled back in the chair for a moment, deep in thought, expression scrunched up as he clasped his hands around one knee and chewed on his bottom lip. Erica just waited for him to continue. She had such a good sense for him, for his rhythms. It was comforting.

"I was…" he began, thoughtfully, "but I was also excited. It was the 70s, you know, and there were more gay people coming here, more love children... anybody. Back then, if you had a bus ticket it had better say San Francisco because this was the place to come." A small, secret smile flitted across his lips. "People often say of my generation that we came to San Francisco to be gay. And I think they're right. I think that's accurate. We came to San Francisco so we could fit."

The reporter's head tilted to one side. "How would you describe it?"

"It was...oh, it was like stepping out of a black and white movie into a world of living color. I almost couldn't believe it." Blaine's laugh was breathy, incredulous. "Here I was, this small town boy, with my dungarees and my boots and the haircut my mother had given me in our kitchen just two days before, and I'm walking down Castro street and there are _men_ stopping to check me out. All kinds of men." He grinned, and his eyes were far away. "I just couldn't even believe it."

Erica giggled. "What did you do?"

"Well, you know, of course I did what any grown man in my situation would do." He winked.

"Oh, yeah?" She leaned a bit closer. "What's that?"

Blaine straightened up in the chair, and the leather groaned and squeaked as he laid his hand on his breast. "Why, I ran _straight_ back to my room with my tail between my legs and hid for a week."

The reporter laughed with delight. "Did you really?"

"Of course, of course!" He waved her off. "It was intimidating! It really was. I mean, even then, there were already cliques forming. I was still in the closet, of course, and it seemed like everyone else already knew what was going on, what was hip and fashionable, just what to wear and…" He huffed. "Well, you know, there was the military look, and this sort of outdoorsman look, the western look, the preppy look, and even the leather look, and I just didn't quite _fit_ anywhere. There wasn't like... a dapper, small town, farm boy look."

"I see." Erica covered her mouth to stifle another round of giggles. "Well, I hope it got better."

"It did, it did." He nodded. "As you know, I am quite charming, and I made friends."

"A little more than _friends_ , it sounds like."

"Well, yeah, but like, I tended to be the type that always had a partner. I mean, I tried. I would go and pick up guys and bring them home and they would wanna go from 0 to 60 so fast. I couldn't do it. I was _terrible_ at anonymous sex." He rolled his eyes almost fondly. "I just, I couldn't do it. I wanted to introduce myself and talk, get to know them. It didn't click." His gaze dropped briefly to his lap, where he toyed with the gold band on his finger. "Guys were going to the bathhouses. I can't quite remember the names of all the places, but there was like, Dave's and Club San Francisco and the Ritch Street Health Club. I remember the signs and the newspaper ads, and you know." He waved his hand. "I tagged along with my friends a few times. It was fun, but it wasn't really my scene."

Erica hummed and twirled her pen. "What was the dating atmosphere like? You know, when you first got here. How would you describe it?"

"Well," the corners of his mouth turned up mischievously, "let me just put it this way. If you took a bunch of young men and said 'have as much sex as you can', how much sex would they have?" He arched his brow, which the redheaded reporter matched with a smirk of her own. "The sense was, if gay is good, then gay sex is good, and more gay sex is even better."

"Hm."

"It's not like that anymore. Not like it was back then. Guys were having sex to have fun, having sex to find love, having sex to...to rebel against people who said that you couldn't have sex. All of America was feeling very confident that you could be much more sexual and that was okay. Sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, all of that was curable with a shot, or a pill, or something like that."

He reached up to his collar, again, and unconsciously adjusted his bow tie.

"I arrived in the late 70s," he said, and the teasing lilt in his tone was gone. "I remember when Harvey Milk was murdered. I was there for the riots when they handed down the sentencing for Dan White. Voluntary manslaughter. He only got 8 years." Blaine paused, frowning. "We were all angry. We felt betrayed by the government and by the establishment. There were beatings, and people burned cars, a lot of animosity with the police. I went to this rally with my friends in May of '79. They had closed off all the streets, and it was packed, and I remember that Anne Kronenberg was there giving this angry speech, and at the end of it she started a chant. 'Welcome to the 80s! Welcome to the 80s!' That night, it felt like something had shifted, likes things were changing. Of course, something had. We just didn't know it yet. AIDS was already there with us, even then."

"When did you know?"

Blaine licked his lips. "The first time I heard anything concrete was in 1981, and by then, about 1 in 5 gay men were already infected. Just in my group alone, there were a few who we guessed probably had it already. They got sick, and none of us knew what it was. By the time we got a test, you know, so we could actually get tested, 1 in 2 people had it."

His throat bobbed, and his hands came up to his face in spite of himself. When his voice emerged again through his fingers it was lower, and thicker.

"I remember looking in the window of the old Star Pharmacy one day. There was this homemade flyer taped up there with the words 'Gay Cancer' written on top, and a note that said 'watch out, guys, there's something out there'." He took a shuddering breath. "And on the flyer there were these little polaroid photographs that this young man had made of himself. There were at least three, maybe four of them. In the first one he had his mouth wide open, like he was at the doctor's office, and inside there were these big, purple splotches, and there was another picture where he had pulled up his shirt, and on his chest, again, there were these purple splotches everywhere, all the way up to his collar." Blaine pulled his fingers away from his face. "It made such a huge impact on me. For the next few weeks, everywhere I went, it just... it stayed with me."

He sighed, and again, Erica waited patiently for him to finish. There was more to be said, but he didn't want to be the one to say it. It had been such a long time, and it was nice to forget and move on. Blaine cleared his throat.

"I went home one day and Sebastian was complaining about this red spot in the middle of his eye. I hadn't really noticed it until then, but it had apparently been growing, and it was starting to freak him- to freak both of us out. I told him about the flyers, and we went to see the doctor later that week."

Erica's mossy green eyes were dull, and her pen had all but stilled against the page as she watched Blaine struggle to utter his next sentence.

"It was Kaposi Sarcoma. KS. He had cancer in his eye." Blaine shuddered. "I tried not to panic, you know, but the next week Jerry went into the hospital for pneumonia, and he was dead 5 days later. 5 days. Just...gone. Like, I can still remember seeing the newspaper at the coffee shop around the corner from our apartment. 'Rare cancer diagnosed in 41 homosexuals.'" The words left his lips with a tremor. "There wasn't even a name yet for the disease that was killing my friends, my _partner,_ but there was this, like, this _dread_ in my stomach, like a stone, because I just _knew_ that we were in trouble."

Blaine wiped his eyes and noted that an eerie silence had fallen over the room. Even the cameraman and the sound guy had stopped to listen, frozen mid-motion over their machines. Birds sang outside on the windowsills, sweet, clear songs overlapping and intertwining. Like mourning songs. He sniffled, and looked away, and Erica waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts again.

"I'm sorry," she said, softly.

Blaine swallowed around the lump in his throat. "It's alright."

"You weren't infected, correct?"

"No."

"How did you handle all of this?" Her teeth clicked together as she chewed on her words, seeming to debate something in her head. "As a couple, I mean? How did you both handle the illness?"

"Well...it was a death sentence back then. We knew nothing. There was nothing we could do. The doctors were afraid, and the hospital didn't want us there, and the chemo just wasn't working." Blaine's hands trembled, and he balled them into tight fists in his lap. "He kept wasting away. He was so, so skinny, just skin and bones, and in the meantime there was all this prejudice. I remember thinking, it was- there was all this fear. So much suspicion. There were people, like Pat Roberts, I remember him in particular, talking about how we were reaping the evils of our sinful lifestyle. I was so angry. I wanted to scream at people, like, I would sit and scream at my television set. It wasn't just about sex. We weren't some disparate network that comes and then goes. Our community was tested in a way that few communities on Earth have ever been tested, but we survived, and we overcame, and people weren't able to see that."

Blaine heaved a sigh, allowing his eyes to close for a moment.

"Sebastian died three months after his initial diagnosis" he said, wiping away fresh tears. "I don't know what else to say about it. I thought it was the end of the world. He was just gone, and there were no answers. I can't even tell you what that feels like."

Erica nodded, eyes growing red around the edges as she swept more strawberry hair over her ear. She was just listening now. The pen sat idly between her fingers as she leaned ever closer in her chair, at rapt attention. The cameraman was wiping his eyes into his shirt, and it inspired a small, watery smile on Blaine's face.

His voice was low when he broke the silence again. "There's nothing _extraordinary_ about the fact that you lose the people you love, because it's gonna happen to all of us. It's just that it happened in this small community of people who were disenfranchised and separated from their families. When I talk to people, and young people in particular, who ask me what it was like, I say that it was like a warzone. I mean, none of us have ever lived in a warzone, but, well… none of us ever knew when the bomb was gonna drop."

"Did you feel isolated?"

"Sure, yeah. Of course, we did, but it wasn't like that for long, because people started stepping up. People who- well, I don't know who, just anyone started volunteering, and pretty soon there were a whole bunch of us joining new organizations and trying to find ways to help. I think that's what saved me."

"How so?"

"Well, you know, none of my friends are around anymore."

Blaine clasped his hands together again in his lap, and his eyes slid off to the side, rooted in some past, faraway place. The lines in his face seemed deeper now, his body heavier, as though the the telling of his story had dredged up old poison that had begun, again, to afflict him. Even his voice, bright and playful in the beginning, now seemed weighted, leaden, like a boat taking on water.

"I kept a stack of obituaries on my desk at work, and it eventually got so big that I had to move it into my drawer. There was so much tragedy around me. I needed something good to work for. I needed to make a difference. It's why I joined the Agapi Project."

His words had grown so quiet that they seemed just a murmur, almost as if he were talking to himself, as if he had forgotten entirely that the reporter, and her crew, were there with him in the room.

"I still walk through the Castro and I see them," he said, "these hungry ghosts. It's like they've experienced so much death that they can't get back to the land of the living. I could have been one of them." Blaine shivered, and his voice grew smaller still. "That easily could have happened to me."

/ / /


	2. Chapter 1

_7.2.15_

 _Chapter one is finally here! With only...what, a two week turn around time? Definitely not my worst._

 _Say hello to Santana!_

 _-Rex_

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

The bus struck a pothole as they neared the city, and the sudden lurch jostled Santana awake from her perch against the window. She blinked angrily for several seconds, remembering herself in time to wipe away the trail of drool on her chin before the elderly man next to her caught sight of it. She was quick enough to save at least some of her dignity. It didn't, however, prevent him from chuckling at the dazed, vaguely irritated expression on her face. He winked at her as he folded the page of his newspaper, and the urge to roll her eyes was overpowering. She turned back to face the window and then indulged. When her head had cleared moments later, and she had recovered her senses, Santana did not recognize the landscape that she saw. She leaned forward until her forehead was pressed against the windowpane, fingers leaving a faint, oily smear as they spread against the glass. Buildings and cars whizzed past outside beneath a crystal blue sky. There were palm trees here, mingling with the pines and the oaks. The land was lush, but not at all like the sprawling evergreen forests of Oregon. Instead, the green foliage seemed lighter, drier, perhaps golden in hue, and the dirt was a tan, sandy brown, different from the dark, rich clay in the Northwest. Low hills climbed off the east side of the interstate, and the land rolled down, gently, toward water that she couldn't yet see. Santana scrabbled for the map she had shoved in the seat pocket in front of her, unfolding it hastily to scan the length of the California coast yet again.

She turned back to the neatly groomed, white-haired man with the newspaper, snacking peacefully on a bag of gummy bears in a crisp, collared white shirt and violet cashmere sweater. He seemed determined to ignore her, but the corners of his lips twitched, betraying faint amusement.

"Where are we?" she asked, with absolutely no preamble.

"I'm sorry, honey," he smiled and folded the paper, shifting to meet her focused gaze with tawny, amber eyes, "I didn't catch your name."

"It's Santana."

"Well, that's a beautiful name," he said, apparently delighted. "My name is Richard."

She acknowledged him with a crisp, professional nod. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too." He smiled and glanced past her out the window. "Ah, we're in Berkeley."

"Oh! Berkeley!" She perked up for a moment, and then deflated. "Wait, where is Berkeley?"

"A bit north of the city."

Her eyes widened. "San Francisco?"

"The very same." He smiled conspiratorially. "You'll see the water in a minute."

"Really?" Her nerves evaporated instantly and her breath fogged up the window.

He chuckled. "Really."

They passed a sign that read 'Oakland', and underneath that, 'San Francisco'. Santana sighed with relief. If she was being honest, she was surprised she had fallen asleep at all. Home was far behind her now, north across the high, pine forests and mountain passes, and this was the furthest she had ever traveled on her own. In fact, the entire ordeal of traveling alone was stressful. She had brought books and a magazine to keep herself occupied, but they sat in her bag unused. Through the night she had focused her dark eyes on the moonlit landscape rushing past her, drumming her fingers against the armrest as she rode out the cocktail of nerves and adrenaline thumping in her veins. Her muscles were stiff and hard, sore from the tension that had never quite abated since her departure from the station in Portland. The sleep had done some good. She felt calmer now. Irate, but pulled together.

Richard's kind voice jarred her out of her thoughts.

"This your first time in San Francisco?"

"Huh?" She half-turned before comprehension set in. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, first time."

"Are you from California?"

"No," her eyes slid across and met his tentatively, "Oregon."

"I see." He smiled. "Portland?"

"Yeah."

"So, what brings you to the golden state, miss Santana?"

She tugged at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, crew cut and oxford grey with a Portland Pilots logo emblazoned on the front. Her mouth opened and closed as she wrestled with several automatic, insubstantial answers. The words were on her tongue, but she couldn't force them out. She wanted to tell him truth. He seemed like the sort of person who would actually be capable of appreciating the gesture, and she wanted to tell him, but first she had to wrangle with her thoughts. Why had she come down here? That was such an excellent question, because it wasn't as though the jobs weren't available in Oregon. She had hardly donned her cap and gown before her father, a respected pediatrician in his own right, was tossing job offers at her. There was a position at Providence Hospital with her name on it. All she had to do was show up, and instead, she had gathered her belongings into a suitcase and purchased a ticket from the counter at the Greyhound station.

"I needed to get out," she said at last, skeptically, testing the words on her tongue to see if they fit.

Richard nodded gently, and looked at her with a new understanding in his eyes, and suddenly Santana knew that they fit. It was so much simpler than she had made it out to be, arguing with her father in the kitchen just yesterday. She had only ever needed the confidence to strike out on her own. She wanted to do something alone, for herself. She wanted to prove that she was strong enough to make it.

"I left home once," Richard mused. "It was both terrifying and exhilarating, and I don't regret it one bit."

Something about his tone piqued her curiosity. "Where are you from?" she asked, turning to give him her full attention for the first time.

"Tulsa, Oklahoma," he said proudly, wistfully.

She read more in his tone than she was probably meant to. "You haven't been back?"

Was it really a question? It wasn't really a question. It felt like a formality to ask at all, and he felt it, too. Richard regarded her with mild surprise.

"No," he replied mildly, tilting his head. "I haven't."

She knew better than to ask why. Her gut was trying to tell her something. It tugged and pulled from somewhere deep inside when she studied his weathered face.

"Do you miss it?"

"Of course."

His smile was so sad that she was compelled to tear her eyes away. The rush of emotion in her head was too much for a chance encounter on the bus. Santana slumped against the window and folded in on herself, squinting out at the houses and trees whizzing past.

Richard sighed, and she heard the distinct rustling of plastic, as, moments later, a bright red gummy bear was pressed into her palm. "I hope you like cherry," he said, turning to fish out another color. "I like the yellow ones, myself."

Santana blinked at the candy in her hand for a moment. "Um...thanks."

"You're welcome."

She popped the bear in her mouth and chewed slowly.

"My dear," he began lightly, reaching over to press another candy, green this time, into her hand, "no matter where you go in this world, home will always be home. You can travel to the ends of the Earth to find yourself, but you can't change the people that brought you into the world. Sometimes home isn't what we need it to be, and that's alright. Everyone carves out their own place in the world."

Santana gazed down at her blue jeans. "What are you trying to say…?"

Richard chewed his candy thoughtfully. "You can't change where you're from, but you can change where you're going. So, don't be ashamed. Face forward, and keep moving."

She hummed and studied the lines in the palm of her hand. Were they getting deeper already? She was getting older.

"Well, I don't know where I'm going," she admitted grumpily. "I only know what I'm running away from."

"And what's that?"

"Mediocrity."

Richard laughed, and it almost startled her how pleasant it was, throaty and warm, raspier than it had probably in his youth. She watched, mouth ajar, as his eyes crinkled and his head fell back against the seat, white teeth flashing in the sun. A flush crept up her neck and she felt like she was 7 years old again, pouting, as her abuelo chuckled at her and pinched her cheek.

"What's so funny?" she growled, shrinking away.

He smiled and cleared his throat. "How old are you, Santana?"

"22."

"That's all?" He laughed again. "So, young. Have you gone to school?"

"University of Portland," she replied stiffly, "class of 1980."

"What did you go in for?"

"Nursing."

"BSN?"

"Yeah."

"Have you got a job lined up?"

"An interview," she glanced out the window as larger buildings came into view, "with San Francisco General."

"Oh, congratulations!"

"It's nothing," she waved him off, "my father basically got me in the door."

Richard smiled and offered her another gummy bear. "So, make him proud."

She quirked a brow.

"Alright," he flipped a hand, "or blow the doors off the place and prove that you deserve it."

Santana accepted the candy and smirked at him. "As if I were capable of anything less."

"That's the spirit." His eyes twinkled. "Boy, for a second there I thought you were selling yourself short."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well…"

"Ah, look!" He pointed past her, auburn eyes sparkling like amber in the sunlight. "It's the ocean!"

Santana just gasped and whipped around to peer out at the sliver of turquoise finally visible on the horizon. She didn't care whether she looked her age or not. The rigidity dissolved from her back and shoulders. Her harsh gaze softened. Her arms fell away from her chest. She was living in the moment, and right now she lived to catch another glimpse of that shimmering blue. It was like seeing the ocean for the first time all over again. It was like waking up from a grey dream. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and this time it fluttered from excitement, not nerves. A lopsided smile rested on her pouty, red lips. She didn't care enough to tamp it back down. Richard, meanwhile, was all too keen to indulge her excitement, treating her to more candy until the bag was empty and her stomach hurt. He pointed out landmarks, and told stories of his youth, drawing bright, smoky laughter from her lungs, like charcoal dripping with honey and spices, dark and rich like her warm, brown skin.

"You are just gorgeous when you smile," Richard told her, shaking his head. "Gorgeous. A real Latin beauty."

And for once her skin didn't crawl when his eyes swept across her figure, and she only blushed a little when he fussed with her hair, like her mother fawning over a beautiful flower arrangement in a shop window.

"I'll bet the boys don't know what hit them when you walk into a room."

Her smile was coy. "Something like that."

"Oh, don't be so modest!"

"Please, I don't know the meaning of the word."

They cackled together like old friends.

The traffic around them grew steadily denser. The water rolled out west like a cerulean mirror, punctuated here and there by low, misty hills on the horizon. She spent the rest of her trip glued to the window, listening absently to the excited chatter that picked up around her. A VW Beetle rumbled past, mint green, windows rolled down in spite of the autumn nip in the air. There was a man in the front seat, and he was everything that she would have expected him to be, wearing aviators and a brown suede vest, long hair flowing back over the seat and headrest. It was a small comfort in a strange city, knowing what to expect. If Richard was correct, that the hippies were alive and well in San Francisco, she was perfectly fine with that. They climbed the steady incline on the Bay Area Bridge, whipping past the soaring metal towers and green suspension cables until the freeway plateaued, and the city rose up from the ocean, an apparition of long piers and gleaming skyscrapers, cutting the sky like jagged teeth of all shapes and sizes. Santana's heart soared. She felt like she could fly. She turned and smiled brightly at Richard, and he grinned back at her.

"Welcome to San Francisco," he said.

Santana wanted to laugh, and reach out to hug him, but she settled for a restrained, "thank you," instead and turned back to the window.

Their journey came to an end all too soon. The bus driver took the first exit off the highway as they crossed into downtown, steering them down Fremont St. to the Greyhound Station, a nondescript grey building situated in the thick of downtown's hustle and bustle. Richard patted her hand as they pulled into the terminal, and she hadn't even realized that she was gripping the armrest.

"This is us," he said, with a flourish of his fingers and a note graceful finality. "I enjoyed your company, miss Santana."

"You're not so bad yourself," she tried for a sly smirk, and blushed when all she could summon was a bashful smile. "Thanks for the gummy bears."

"It was my pleasure."

The bus lurched to a stop in the last bay, jolting them all forward. The people around them had already jumped into the aisle, reaching into the compartments to retrieve their bags. Richard stood and rummaged around overhead. She tried not to look surprised when he passed down her bright red backpack.

"Do you know where you're going?" he asked.

"My uncle is picking me up."

He nodded and tucked his newspaper, now folded, into his leather messenger bag. Santana squeezed into the aisle behind him, ahead of a woman in a flowing yellow dress. They filed out slowly with the rest of the passengers and she thanked the driver as she tottered down the steps on stiff legs.

"This is where I leave you," he said, rounding on her near the luggage bay. "If we never meet again, I hope that you get that job at the hospital and live to be the greatest nurse this city has ever seen."

Santana was surprised to find herself blinking back tears, clutching the strap of her backpack tightly in one hand.

"Thank you," she said, again.

Richard squeezed her shoulder and smiled one last time before he went, sifting through the crowd. His walk was graceful and it suited him, she decided. He had a long, smooth gait, like a dancer, coat thrown over his shoulder, leather bag slung across a surprisingly strong back. He looked regal. She thought about this as she tucked that information away. She thought about it years later when she recalled their encounter on the bus. It was the first and last time she ever saw Richard. It was the perfect introduction to San Francisco.

/ / /

Her uncle, Sergio was an all-American rags to riches story, and he told the story often. By now, Santana knew every detail by heart. He had immigrated to the country as a child with her Colombian grandparents, escaped his blue collar neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, put himself through college waiting tables, and ascended through the ranks of a multinational financial corporation in San Francisco. He was now a successful banker, and he lived with his wife and three kids in the fashionable Balboa Terrace neighborhood southwest of the city. He was warm, unlike her father, a hot-blooded show off, greeting her with jovial enthusiasm as he stepped out of his brand new Mercedes Benz. He looked exactly the way she remembered him, stout and broad shouldered standing at no more than 5'10". He had a powerful square jaw and white teeth that flashed in the mid morning sun, a full head of hair that was dark and thick and slicked back across his scalp. Muscles bulged under his polo and his jeans. He was bulldog of a man. His booming voice echoed around the parking lot as he swept her up into a bone crushing hug.

"Santana!" he sang, "my favorite niece! How are you, mija?"

"Buenísimo, tio."

She was promptly lifted from the ground and spun about, laughing in spite of herself as he set her gingerly back on the pavement. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes bright. He held out her out by the shoulders and inspected her with mock suspicion pasted across his handsome features.

"You're so thin! Is my brother feeding you up there?"

She scoffed and slapped his hands away. "Like abuela would let me starve."

"Ay, she is generous with her portions. My wife went on a month long diet after our last visit." He scratched the back of his head. "Come on! Give me your stuff. If we hurry we might catch Sharon before she takes the kids to school."

"Actually, tio," Santana toed the ground a bit, "I was sort of hoping you could give me a little tour? Maybe?"

His lips twisted, and he tried to look firm, but he couldn't hide his affectionate smile. "Just a little one, okay?"

A little tour turned out to be a brief drive through his neighborhood. Balboa Terrace, as her Uncle Sergio informed her, was the affordable, suburban alternative to the stately St. Francis Wood neighborhood. It had most of the same benefits, modest green yards, clean streets, well-maintained homes, and a general pride of ownership, but without the upper crust feel. Nevertheless, there was air about it that she recognized immediately, wider boulevards and taller trees, churches and schools on the corners. People moved to St. Francis Wood to make a statement about their wealth. People moved to Balboa Terrace to raise their kids.

"I call it 'St. Francis Wood Adjacent'," her uncle said, arm slung casually out the window as they coasted along Junipero Serra. "You don't get that 90210 feel so much, but the prices are much more reasonable if you ask me."

Santana doubted that his definition of 'reasonable' overlapped with hers very much, but she said nothing as they turned onto Monterrey and rolled up a gentle incline. She made note of the streets as they passed: San Rafael, San Fernando, San Leandro, Santa Ana, San Benito, San Aleso. The houses here were large and multistoried, sprawling in some instances. Some even reminded her of plantations, with gates and long driveways and verdant green lawns. Sergio took a hard right on San Jacinto street, and her eyes widened as he slowed to a stop outside an elegant Spanish style home. It was two and half stories with a terracotta roof, shuttered second story windows, goldenrod stucco siding, and a mustard yellow bay window that dominated the front facade.

Sergio took her bags and lead her up a set of broad, painted cement steps through a rod iron gate. The front porch was cloistered off from the street, in the Spanish style, and he closed the gate behind them, leading her across the tiles to a ornate front door of stained and stylized wood.

"Mi casa es su casa," he said, leading her into the house.

Santana rolled her eyes, smiling in spite of herself. "Thanks."

The interior of the house was as she expected it to be. Her uncle had money now, for the first time in his life, and it was no secret to the rest of the family that he liked nice things. The main floor was tiled with burnished terracotta, and a carpeted staircase with a rod iron banister yawned just beyond the door, swirling up toward the second story. The entry was large and open, leading into a luxuriously decorated sitting room on the right, furnished with a modern brown suede couch and adjoining love seat, a high pile white rug, and a glass coffee table on spindly metal legs supporting a stack of large books and a single orchid in a square black pot. Graphic black and white art reminiscent of Matisse's nudes hung in bold black frames on either side of the brick fireplace in the center of the far wall large. A large potted palm fawned over the space from its place in the bay window, and blown glass ornaments peaked out between rows of books in the built in bookshelves opposite the window.

A silent "wow" formed on her lips.

"Make sure you leave your shoes at the door. You can toss them in the basket here," he pointed to a round wicker basket overflowing with shoes of various shapes and sizes, "or carry them upstairs and stash them in your room. Just don't leave them on the floor. Sharon will trip over them and get mad."

He showed her up to the second floor and gave her a quick tour of the bedrooms before leading her through a door at the end of the hall and up another short staircase that wrapped around to the right. These steps were unpolished and made of wood, and their feet clunked against them noisily as they ascended through the gloom. Sergio heaved her luggage through the doorway at the top, bumping the corners clumsily against the frame, and she followed him in.

"This is your room."

Santana paused and looked around. The space was cozy, with none of the luxury that oozed from the rooms on the main floor. The attic, by contrast, had bare walls and a low, peaked ceiling that sloped with the contours of the roof. A queen sized bed rested against the far wall beneath the single hung window, fitted with simple white sheets, white pillows, and a cream down comforter. It took every ounce of her self control not to wince at the floral print drapes. To the right of the bed there was a small bamboo nightstand, which was just large enough to hold two items: a rectangular, digital alarm clock with faux wood finish, silver trim, and bulky black buttons, and a reading lamp with a white shade and a light pink base shaped like a mollusk shell. Nestled into the opposite corner to her left there was a black reading chair with a cracked, leather cushion and adjacent to that, on the other side of the door, a long, squat wooden bureau. A myriad of framed family photos rested along the top, joining a makeup mirror and a delicate silver tray ready to hold makeup and perfumes. She hummed under her breath as she set her bag aside.

"It's not much, but the mattress is brand new and-"

"I like it." Santana advanced further into the room and executed a quick spin. "No, really! I like it, tio. This is good."

His shoulders visibly relaxed. "Thank god. Sharon was gonna put you downstairs in the in the first floor guest room, but I thought might like the attic better."

"You were right," Santana beamed at him. "It's nice up here."

He returned a relieved smile. "You can do whatever you want with the decorations. I had to furnish it at the last minute so it's sort of a hodgepodge of stuff from the basement and the garage, but have at it. You can even use the picture frames." He gestured loosely at the chest of drawers. "Just stick the pictures in an envelope or something."

She perched on the edge of the bed and pressed her palms against the mattress, testing the firmness. "We'll see. I left all my band posters at home."

"I'm sure you'll find some new ones." Sergio winked. "Oh, that reminds me! We could go see somebody if you want. I get free tickets from clients all the time. Although you just missed Van Halen last month, which is too bad because it was a great show, but anyway, I'll let you know next time someone offers me tickets and we can go."

"Sure, that'd be fun." She picked an errant piece of fuzz off the comforter and flicked it onto the carpet.

"Alright, well," her uncle clapped his hands together, "I'll let you get settled. I have to head back to work, but feel free to explore. Sharon put some leftovers in the fridge for you whenever you're ready for lunch. If you head out to do some sightseeing that's fine, just make sure you're back for dinner at seven."

Santana nodded absently, eyes still bouncing around the room. "Where's Sharon now?"

"She has aerobics on Thursday mornings, I think." He checked his watch. "She should be heading that way now."

"Okay."

"Is there anything else I can get you?"

"No, tio," she rolled her eyes, "I'm an adult now, I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes," she flipped her hand at him, and immediately thought of Richard from the bus. "I'm just going to study for my interview tomorrow."

"Alright, mija." He shifted in the doorway, looking torn for a moment, before striding forward into the room and kissing her firmly on the forehead. "It's good to have you here." His wide, brown eyes twinkled. "You're gonna love San Francisco."


	3. Chapter 2

_7.10.15_

 _Two chapters in two weeks? I'm on fire, ya'll. Seriously, it's this summer heat keeping me indoors, slaving over my fics._

 _Don't get used to this VIP treatment!_

 _-Rex_

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Dr. Anderson mulled over his next question as he perused her resume and qualifications. The paper crinkled in his hand and he adjusted his thin, wire frame glasses, eyes flicking across the page in front of him from left to right. Across from him, sitting stock still with perfectly rigid, almost exaggerated, formal posture, Santana watched closely, twisting her fingers in her lap. She resisted the urge to straighten her blouse, yet again, and smooth her grey pencil skirt, lest she appear fidgety. She couldn't have that in her first interview out of college. Act nervous, feel nervous. Act calm, feel calm. For once, it seemed beneficial to take a counselor's advice. She kept still until, at length, the aging doctor hummed quietly to himself and set the papers aside.

"Much as I hate cliches, Ms. Lopez, I am genuinely curious as to how you will answer this question. I hope you will forgive me for asking."

She nodded tersely for him to continue.

"Why do you want to work here?"

That certainly wasn't a question she had prepared herself for. She had spent so much time practicing _how_ to prove herself a worthy candidate that she hadn't given any real formal thought to _why_ she wanted to be a candidate.

Well…" she began slowly, before trailing off into puzzled silence.

Dr. Anderson sensed her hesitation. "I ask because I know your father. We took classes together in college. I spoke with him on the phone yesterday and he mentioned that you already had an offer from Providence up in Portland." He peered at her through his spectacles. "Why did you come all the way to San Francisco, Ms. Lopez? When you had a job lined up already? Most graduates I know would jump at the opportunity, and yet here you are, hundreds of miles from home, interviewing with us."

Santana licked her lips and glanced into her lap. "Well…"

"Please," he gestured to her across the desk, "feel free to speak candidly. You have already proven to me that you took your education very seriously. I only ask in order to understand your motivations in applying here."

She brightened a little, posture relaxing just a touch at the compliment. Her expression, however, remained pinched. A few more moments passed with her deep in thought, frowning at her hands. Dr. Anderson waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts, until at last, Santana lifted her head and looked him in the eye.

"It would have been too easy," she said simply, and shook her head. "My father is a good doctor with a lot of connections in his community. I didn't want to be handed something just because of my family name. I wanted to earn it."

The doctor smiled. "So, that's why you're here."

She returned his smile with a fierce one of her own. "That's why I'm here."

"You feel that you have something to prove?"

"Yes, I do."

"Hm." He stroked his beard. "What if I told you that you are easily the cleverest, most knowledgeable candidate I have interviewed for this position? What would you say then?"

"I would say…" she pursed her lips, brow creasing. "I would say that I'm surprised."

"Surprised? Really?"

"Yes, but I would also ask that you wait to compliment me until after I have proven that I can be a clever and knowledgeable nurse as well."

Dr. Anderson chuckled. "Is that so?"

"Yes," Santana smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry if that was too forward. I just don't want to get a big head before I've even started."

"I completely understand." The doctor grabbed his pen and made a quick note at the top of her resume. "Well, Ms. Lopez, I really enjoyed my time with you today, and I would like to offer you the job." He raised his eyes to hers, smiling faintly. "Do you accept?"

Santana exhaled for what felt like the first time all day and cracked a genuine smile. Her cheeks buzzed and her eyes twinkled, and she felt like she had just swept the Phillies in the World Series.

"You really mean it?" she asked, happy and incredulous all at once.

He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I really mean it."

"Then yes, I accept!"

"Excellent!" Dr. Anderson rubbed his hands together. "You've already spoken with HR about compensation and benefits, correct?"

"Yes." She nodded vigorously. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome," he said, winking, "but don't thank me just yet. You'll be training with Emma, and she is very tough."

"I look forward to the challenge," Santana replied, rising from her seat to shake his hand.

The doctor gripped her palm and shook it once. "We'll see you Monday night."

/ / /

Santana was still giddy as she left the hospital, striding out into the brisk, fall air, face tilted up to catch any lingering warmth from the late November sun. She didn't immediately return home. The day was still young. Instead, she spent some time exploring the surrounding area. The hospital campus was situated on Potrero Avenue in the Mission District, southeast of downtown. She read the street names off a map as she strolled down Potrero toward 24th. The neighborhood was bright and eclectic. Buildings in all shapes and sizes mingled together in vibrant city blocks. There were, of course, the vintage San Francisco style homes, narrow, two story facades flush with the street, bay windows, little peaked roofs, and steep, painted stairs that climbed off the sidewalk into framed doorways, but there were also modern structures, with clean, geometric lines, cubic shapes, and stucco instead of wooden siding. Sprinkled in among the houses there were functional storefronts, plain by comparison, towering cork oak trees weeping over the streets, brick apartment buildings, both old and new, some with the ubiquitous bay windows and peaked, rooftop moulding, others with same cubic, modern style. A light breeze picked up, and golden leaves swirled around her feet. She smiled and wished for a camera to capture the moment. The world seemed much brighter and friendlier, wide open, filled with possibilities and rolling horizons. It was bracing, invigorating. Santana breathed in deep and let the oxygen fill her lungs. It felt good to be free.

She wandered into a cafe to grab a light lunch, and searched through the discount bins at a record shop, purchasing a Joni Mitchell poster that she rolled up and stuffed in a tube at the register. She found a cable knit sweater and a new pair of jeans at a clothing shop, the kind that clung to her hips in just the right way, and tapered at the knees instead of flowing out. It may have been fiscally reckless, but buying things felt powerful. It made her feel like a real adult.

She made her way home alone on the bus as the afternoon faded into evening, hiking the last leg home at a relaxed pace. Uncle Sergio was out at some late client meetings, so she delivered the good news to her Aunt Sharon, who declared that they would have a celebratory dinner in her honor, and vehemently refused any help, plunking her niece down at the kitchen table with a glass of lemonade and a plate of cookies.

"Tell me about your new job," her aunt said, pulling ingredients out the cupboards over the stove. "What made you want to be a nurse?"

"Well, I've always wanted to help people. It seemed like a natural career choice."

Sharon examined the date on a carton of eggs. "I think it's a very admirable professional. I could never personally handle the gore, but someone has to do it." She glanced up her at niece and smiled. "I suppose that someone is you, Tana."

Santana munched thoughtfully on a cookie. "I suppose so."

Her aunt frowned and set the eggs aside. "Michael!" She cupped her ear and listened for a moment. "Michael! Can you come down here, please?!"

A loud bang echoed from the second floor, followed by the pattering of feet on the staircase. Her cousin appeared in the kitchen doorway moments later, dark brown hair tousled, glasses askew. He glanced dubiously at Santana, who he admittedly hadn't seen since he was much younger, and tugged on the hem of his Star Wars shirt.

"Mande?" he asked, addressing his mother in Spanish.

Sharon rounded the counter to the table where she had set her purse and rifled through it, pulling a five dollar bill from her wallet, and holding it up. "I need you to run to the store for me and grab a carton of eggs. Go fast! I'm making us a fancy dinner tonight."

Michael perked up. "Can I take my bike?".

"Only if you wear your helmet and stay out of the street."

"Okay. Can I buy some gum?"

Sharon pursed her lips. "Alright...but only one pack. Buy one for your sister, too, please."

"Gracias, mami!" He grinned, jammed the bill into his pocket, and bounded out the back door.

"He's getting older," Santana mused.

"Yes, and bigger, too. He grows out of everything I buy him in a matter of months."

"My brother's pants were always too short," she sipped her lemonade. "I had a lot of hand me downs for a while."

"How is Javi?"

"He's fine, you know." Santana picked the pills off the sleeve of her sweater. "He's a ski instructor up in Canada now. Still calls Mom every day. Always has wild stories when he visits. It _sounds_ like he's having fun, at least."

Sharon hummed under her breath as she flipped through a cookbook. "Is he seeing anyone?"

Santana rolled her eyes. "My brother loves women too much to be single."

"Right. What about you?" her aunt pulled out a mixing bowl and a whisk. "Were you seeing anyone back home?"

"Not...not really."

"Not really?"

Santana's fingers twitched. "No."

"No one caught your eye?"

She weighed her answers carefully. "There was one guy," she said lightly, cautiously, "but it didn't work out."

Sharon nodded in understanding. "He didn't want you to work?"

"Um, no." She licked her lips. "He didn't."

"Well, good for you. I think it's good that you came down here, and that you're doing what you love."

"Thanks," Santana managed a smile. "I do love it."

"You're a pretty young thing. You'll meet a nice guy soon enough. For now, enjoy your youth."

Santana kept her smile plastered firmly in place and reached for another cookie.

/ / /

"What are you doing up so late?"

She glanced up from her books to find her uncle leaning in the doorway, heavy and fatigued as he loosened the burgundy tie around his neck.

"Just studying."

"Studying?" He checked his watch. "At this hour?"

"I'm starting the night shift on Monday," she explained with a yawn. "I have to stay up so I'm not too tired."

"Nights, huh?" He dropped into the leather armchair and slumped back. "That means I won't be able to drive you in."

"It's okay," she waved him off, "I'll take the bus."

"Will that be safe?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine."

"Alright, well, I think I've got a hunting knife in the garage…" He trailed off into silence for a moment, glancing around the room as he sought a new topic for conversation. "Hey, I see you got a Joni Mitchell poster. Nice! You've got good taste, mija."

"Thanks."

"I saw her a few years back when she came through town. She was just incredible live, you know? She had such a presence on stage! One of the best shows I've ever seen."

"Yeah?" She nodded absently, flipping the page of her textbook. "That's cool."

He sighed at her and rubbed his fingers through his hair. "I guess I'm just distracting you, huh?"

A pang of guilt throbbed in the pit of her stomach. Santana ripped her eyes away from her book and met his weary gaze. Abuela's words echoed in her mind. Bad listener. Distracted. Too Focused. Self absorbed. She took a deep breath.

"Sorry," she shifted into a sitting position, "I, uh...I get really focused when I'm studying."

"It's okay, kiddo." Sergio's smile was forgiving. "I think you're doing pretty alright in life because of it."

Santana smiled, though she wasn't so sure she agreed. There were a whole host of people who begged to differ, who would trip over themselves to object. The litany of ex-boyfriends she had left behind in Portland would be first in line. Her attention was precious, more valuable even than her time, and they were resources she rarely shared with the people in her life. Focus had brought her a career. It had never consistently brought her companionship.

"I could do better," she mused quietly, almost to herself. "How was work?"

"Ugh," he groaned. "I'll just say this. Clients can be extremely demanding at times, with no regard for whether or not I might have a family waiting for me at home."

"That's just rude."

"You don't know the half of it." Sergio climbed to his feet and headed for the door. "I'll let you get back to work. I just wanted to say 'hi'."

"Okay."

"Goodnight, mija."

"Goodnight."

/ / /

"Santana?"

She jumped out of her chair, startled out of a nervous, distracted thought. "Hi!" Her voice cracked a little. "Um, yes that's me!"

"I'm Quinn." A young, blonde nurse, just a few inches taller than herself, reached out to shake her hand. "Emma couldn't make it today, so I'll be training you instead."

"Oh, nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

The nurse, Quinn, was an all American girl, and she wore it well, so well that Santana, with her dark hair and bronze skin, was immediately envious. Quinn was conventionally beautiful and deceptively delicate, and spoke in a tone of voice that was sweet like honey, but intense, belying the hidden competitor beneath her saccharine exterior. Her hair was straight and silky, styled into a practical, but fashionable bob that just brushed her collarbone. She wore light makeup that accentuated her strongest features, her flawless, creamy complexion, liquid hazel eyes, sharp eyebrows, and classically curved lips, painted a warm pink to match the dusting of blush on her cheeks. There was little that was natural about her, but she certainly wasn't awkward. She wore her baggy blue scrubs like an evening gown, her gold, cross necklace and princess-cut diamond earrings like the finest jewelry from Tiffany's. It made Santana think of high school, when she dueled with natural born prom queens for a spot at the top. It made her think of the girls in college, who drank too much and married off young when it was clear that they would never finish their degrees. Quinn, like them, had capitalized on her genetic advantages, had put painstaking effort into her appearance. That much was clear, but there was a clarity in her gaze, and a sharp lilt in her voice that hinted at something clever.

It raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

She offered Santana a bright, practiced smile and lead her off down the hallway, into the bowels of the hospital.

"Do you need a uniform?"

Santana glanced down briefly at her modest polo and slacks. "Yes."

Quinn nodded. "The locker room is this way. If you want to wear scrubs you have to buy them yourself, otherwise the hospital will provide a dress and apron."

"I can't believe they let you wear scrubs. That's very modern."

"Well, we're all about modernity here," Quinn's lips quirked. "The hospital administrators changed the dress code because we have more male nurses now. When I started three years ago that wasn't the case."

"I guess I should've bought some scrubs," Santana remarked nervously, smoothing her skirt.

"I'll let you borrow some of mine."

"Really?" Santana sidestepped a gurney, speeding up to match Quinn's brisk pace. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it. Just make sure you bring your own tomorrow."

They rounded a corner, and Quinn lead her through a set of double swinging doors. Santana's senses were practically assaulted. They had entered a long room with white walls and white linoleum floors, and harsh florescent lights that only made them brighter. The room boasted high ceilings, and there was a row of tall windows on one side, a small blessing. Hospital beds, separated by mauve curtains on metal tracks, lined both walls, packed in like sardines, surrounded by rolling trays, hanging IV bags, wires and tubes and beeping morphine alarms. All but one bed were filled, she noted, with individuals of all shapes, colors, and sizes, some dazed, some crying, some speaking in hushed tones with family members or friends perched in rolling chairs. Santana blinked. It was more or less as she remembered it from her internship. It was surprising nonetheless.

"Welcome to the Emergency Room." Quinn lead her through the chaos with the calm, collected confidence of a general marching into war. "We're pretty busy here, even in the middle of the night. The trauma center is our number one line of business, so we get a lot of the cases that the other hospitals won't take." She came slowed to a stop in the center of the chaos and turned to face Santana wearing a light, indifferent expression. "I've never trained new staff before, but Emma is mysophobic and she had another one of her 'episodes'," Quinn put this in air quotes, "so it looks like you're stuck with me for the foreseeable future. At least until her shrinks signs off and sends her back to work."

Santana squirmed, suddenly aware of some invisible pressure to respond. "Okay," she replied anxiously, curling and uncurling her fingers behind her back, "that's fine with me."

Quinn snorted softly. "Of course it is. Glad I have your permission. Do you know what mysophobia is?"

"The pathological fear of contamination and germs," she recited quickly.

The blonde smirked. "What did you say your name was?"

"Santana."

"Santana…"

"Lopez."

"Well, Santana Lopez, lets hope your ability to recite exact medical definitions from memory translates into competent nursing. Shall we get started?"

"Yes, please."

"Great." Quinn turned on her heel and headed for the door. "I'll show you the locker room."

Quinn's standards were high, and Santana could see, from the looks in the eyes of passing staff, that the blonde nurse enforced them. She lead Santana through a grueling regimen of on-the-spot quizzes, spontaneous practice drills, and hands on labor that left the her muscles aching and her head spinning. It was immediately clear that Quinn was passionate about her job. She talked Santana through the rounds, explaining duties as she went, grilling her on medication schedules, intake procedures, and proper use of the equipment. Santana itched to grab a pencil and any piece of scrap paper she could find to take notes, but she had to keep moving. Quinn was a human blur.

By the the end of the night she was dead on her feet. She staggered like a zombie to the bus stop at 7:30 that morning, dozed against the window of the #48 bus, and slogged through a three quarter mile walk home. She greeted her relatives robotically as she entered the house. The stairs felt like a mountain, and she felt like a climber on her last leg of Everest. When she finally reached the attic Santana was so delirious that she couldn't be bothered to change. Her shoes hit wall the near the door, and her head hit the pillow.

Her feet were still swollen the following night when she shuffled into the ER.

Quinn wasn't waiting for her this time. Santana found her adjusting a morphine drip for a man with disfiguring burns on both arms. When she noticed Santana shifting from foot to foot, Quinn just smirked and beckoned for her to follow to the next station.

"Probably the best way you could train to be an ER nurse is to speed walk for hours at a time, because that's what we do." Quinn's golden blonde hair swirled around her neck as she moved. "You have to be fast. You have to hone your instincts so that you can trust your gut when you make snap decisions. The patient turnover rate here is high. There are always new patients coming and going, so you have to be sharp and watch the charts." Santana nearly collided with the older nurse as she came to a stop beside supply cabinet. Quinn, for her part, hardly seemed to notice. "If I had to give you a piece of advice as a new nurse?" The blonde woman paused to think about it. "Don't be lazy. That's a start. And study. Definitely study. Don't stop studying just because you're out of school. School was just the beginning."

"Okay," Santana nodded earnestly.

Quinn started passing back supplies. "The best part about working in the ER is that you never stop learning. Every person that comes in the door is a different case. Every illness is a little bit different. I did rotations in surgery and oncology, but I asked to come back down here. I got bored upstairs." She dallied over a couple of items, oscillating between some small boxes. "It's exciting down here."

Santana followed Quinn to the next bed and continued to nod as the older nurse lectured her on the joys of their profession, hanging up a drip, checking the patient's veins before inserting a new IV. Santana followed like shadow and nodded for the rest of the night, until her head ached and her neck was sore and Quinn was thoroughly sick of hearing herself talk. She slept on the #48 bus again. Her feet hurt so bad that almost cried on the ensuing walk home. This time she didn't bother saying good morning to her relatives as she climbed the stairs. She crawled under the covers and blacked out.

At the end of the first week she was so stiff that she had resorted to popping Tylenol on the clock, but the job itself was becoming less chaotic. Quinn trusted her to complete basic tasks without oversight, and Santana had more than proven herself adept. Her efforts had garnered her modest praise from the other nurses in the ER, as well as Dr. Anderson, who stopped by to check up on her early Saturday morning.

"Quinn says you're sharp. Nice work!"

He clasped her firmly on the shoulder, and she was so tired that it almost bowled her over.

"Thanks," she rasped, unused to praise and not sure what to do with any of it from Quinn, indirect or not.

"Don't thank me," he said. "Thank your incredible work ethic."

Santana blinked. Surely she didn't work that much harder than anybody else in her ward. Not so hard that she deserve any particular recognition for it. Dr. Anderson just smiled.

"I guess you can't see it. Maybe that's for the best."

He glanced off to the side, past her, through her, and a somber expression stole the smile from his lips. For a moment his hair and beard seemed greyer, his eyes duller. He was a man lost in a memory. He was unreachable. And then, like a snap of the fingers, he was back, breathing in deep and exhaling heavily, exhaling the sorrows of the past. He gazed at her clearly, as though he was seeing her for the first time again.

"This hospital really needs good nurses. We need good nurses like you, Santana."

"The patients need me," she replied.

She regretted it the second it left her mouth. She could have smacked herself for feeling the need to clarify something so obvious, but Dr. Anderson's smile only changed, twisting into something wry and wistful.

"Exactly," he said, and headed for the door. "Have a good weekend."

Santana shook off her confusion and returned to work, but she didn't sleep on the bus that day. She rested her head against the window and thought about his words. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had missed something, some important puzzle piece that would have brought the picture into focus. Was he alluding to something in particular? His words had felt so weighty, so...contextual, textured by some event, past or present. They hadn't seemed innocent or polite, and anyway, Dr. Anderson didn't strike her as the small talk type. She wracked her brain for answers as the bus rolled south, but nothing came to mind.

/ / /

* * *

 _A/N: I'm off to Denver for the weekend. Tell me what you think! I'll look forward to your comments when I come back._


	4. Chapter 3

_7.25.15_

 _After the last chapter, an anonymous reviewer asked me when Brittany was gonna happen. Well, unfortunately all I can give you is a semi ominous 'soon', but I promise I haven't forgotten about her. Oh, and I imagine Quinn being in her mid to late twenties._

 _This chapter ended up much longer than anticipated. I'm trying to get things rolling, but I had to bridge some scenes, and ehhh... you get it._

 _Stayed tuned for some intriguing new developments!_

 _-Rex_

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

The New Year came and went in a flash. Santana entered 1981 with her head down and her game face on. Without friends or distractions, she worked through the winter and into the spring, focused so intently on her patients and her studies that her mother resorted to leaving anxious messages on her uncle's answering machine at work. He brought it up over breakfast one morning as Sharon washed up and sent the kids out the door. Santana had made a habit of eating with them before she went to bed, mostly so that she saw them at all.

"She's tried about six tactics already," her uncle said, ticking them off his fingers. "Concern, admonishment, guilt, rage...I can't think of the others, but you get the point."

"That sounds like her," Santana conceded, marking a yet another sentence with her highlighter.

"Please don't bring your books to the table." Sergio huffed. "I can't believe I'm telling you this. You're 23."

She glanced up at him in annoyance as she turned the page. "I'm just reviewing some things."

"You're reviewing things all the time."

"I'm a nurse," she stated, as though this required no defense.

"Yeah, well you need to cool it and have some fun once in a while," he held up a finger to halt the retort forming on her lips. "Everybody needs a break, Santana-bot. Even you. No books at the table."

"Fine." She slammed the textbook shut and resumed eating her cereal with lackluster enthusiasm. "But it's your fault if I kill somebody tonight."

"I think I can live with that." Sergio reached for his orange juice. "Oh, and call your mother, for Chrissake."

"Language!" Sharon called from the kitchen.

He shook his head and waved her off, but lowered his voice regardless. "She's clogging up my goddamn voicemail machine, and it's interfering with my work, okay? Surely, you can relate."

Santana glanced mournfully at her book. "I can definitely relate."

"Call her."

"Okay."

For a while she made a point to schedule in calls, if only as as favor to her uncle, but they were often short, and sometimes awkward. Her mother pressed for details about the city, about her friends, about her life in general away from home. Santana, however, had nothing to comment on that wasn't directly related to work. She could go on for hours about her patients and their maladies. She had almost nothing to say about San Francisco or its culture, as she had seen very little of it since first arriving in the Fall. Her aunt and uncle occasionally took her out to dinner or breakfast with the kids, usually to someplace nearby, the restaurant owned by the Greek family or the Mexican place, and she sometimes joined the other nurses for lunch at the shops around the hospital, but that was extent of it, and her mother wasn't pleased. She was perfectly comfortable making her displeasure known.

"Go out and see the city, Santanita," she admonished, switching into English to embellish her point. "You're not going to make any friends working all the time. You're wasting your youth."

She could hear her grandmother in the background, echoing these words in rapid, staccato Spanish, and they stayed with her for weeks, swirling around in her head as she paced the floor of the ER through the darkest hours of the night. She was chagrined at first. After all, she had moved to California to make something of herself, something bolder and more exciting than before, and so far she had succeeded only in changing her style a bit, buying some looser shirts, some tighter jeans, dresses that flowed freely in the breeze, maybe weaving some braids in with her long, dark hair. Even that didn't matter anyway, because she spent most of her time in scrubs, and aside from family meals, and the occasional outing she made with them to church when her schedule allowed, Santana didn't have time to wear her new clothing. She was defined by her work, and, she realized, staring at herself in the mirror one morning after a long, messy shift, she was okay with that. So, then she got angry. The sharp words in her head prickled like knives against her skin. Why shouldn't she be focused on her job? She wasn't some secretary filing her nails in between phone calls, she was a nurse at San Francisco's largest hospital! If she was engrossed with her duties then so be it! She fought every night to save lives! Shouldn't her mother be proud? Wouldn't any mother be proud of such a responsible, hard working daughter? Especially while her brother went gallivanting around the country with his man-child friends, crashing on couches and taking lovers like he was still 18, doing drugs and shamelessly siphoning money from her parents to afford them. It made her blood boil.

On their next call, when her mother jubilantly relayed yet another one of Javier's censored stories of fun and hijinx, Santana snapped. She knew the real version, the one he had confided to her just a week earlier.

"Obviously she didn't keep the baby," Javi had said, and she could hear him roll his eyes through the phone. "Her husband would have murdered us both. Guy's a piece of work, I tell ya. He'll show up at a party and drink their booze, but then he lights up a joint in a room full of people and refuses to pass."

It had taken a herculean effort on her part to contain her condescension, and even then, it had been poorly concealed. If anyone was a piece of work, it was her brother. A lazy, irresponsible piece of work who refused to grow up and get a job. She told her mother so rather tartly just as she was starting in again on Santana's lack of social life, this time sure to include a litany of sins Javi had omitted from her parents.

Their calls became less frequent, the nagging ceased, and that was that.

Or so she thought.

It was sometime around mid July, a week or two after the fourth, that Santana first hit a wall. It blindsided her. She hadn't really known what to expect, hadn't recognized the signs, the irritation, the muscle tension, the growing weariness. It was like walking into a pole in the middle of the sidewalk, and it disrupted everything, her routine, her balance, her focus. Worst of all, she had no idea how to shake it off. Quinn barked at her for messing up the dosage in a morphine drip, and Santana snapped back with unnecessary ferocity, forgetting herself in a momentary fit of overwhelming fatigue and frustration. Quinn just quirked a brow and sent her home early.

"I'm not sure what crawled up your ass today, but your head isn't in the game and I won't have you endangering patients. Go home and sort it out."

Santana clenched her jaw. "Are you allowed to make that decision?"

Quinn's lips quirked, and a deadly smile spread across them. She had inadvertently challenged the blonde's authority. Oops.

"Emma trusts me implicitly, and always backs up my decisions. I can go get her now if you'd enjoy the humiliation."

Santana's mouth clamped shut.

"I didn't think so." Quinn flipped her hair as she turned. "You're too smart for that."

Santana gathered her things and cried all the way to the bus stop before she remembered that buses didn't run in the middle of the night. A drugged out hippie had set up camp on the bench in the bus shelter, dead to the world, and to her emotional breakdown, and she stood there for a few minutes at a loss for to do, angrily scrubbing away her tears. The streets were more or less empty. There were no taxis for her to hail. With no particular destination in mind, Santana began walking, half-heartedly seeking out a telephone booth. It was how she found herself in a punk bar off Mission Street watching a band break down their set.

It was also where she met Puck.

"Hey, baby."

Santana barely registered him as he slid in next to her at the bar. She kept her hands pressed flat against the sticky wood, clicking her nails in time with the jukebox. When he hailed the bartender and asked what she was drinking, Santana turned mechanically to look at him in the dark, eyes widening imperceptibly when she caught sight of his dark brown mohawk.

"Like what you see?" he asked, laughing amicably at the expression on her face. "Do you want a beer? I'm gonna grab a Coors. You can get whatever you want, but I'm a Banquet Beer man."

She nodded silently and he held up two fingers. It was only a Thursday, and the bar was just half full, so she bypassed the coy act and let her gaze wander lazily across his features. He was young, clean shaven, and handsome, with dark skin like her own, strong shoulders, and a prominent jaw. The neon signs hanging on the wall illuminated his hair with technicolor streaks of red, yellow, and blue, and cast faint, purple hues on his face. She studied his clothes with curiosity, the combat boots he wore despite the heat, strong thighs bulging in a pair of blue jeans, chains that clinked as he moved, and a black wife beater stretched across catalogue-caliber abs. He had only one tattoo that she could see, a small block of text on his left shoulder blade, and he wore a single necklace around this thick neck.

"Dog tags from my buddy Finn," he said, guessing at her line of sight. "Gave 'em to me before he left for 'Nam. I kept 'em when he didn't come back."

Santana inhaled deeply and peeled her fingers off the wood. She didn't normally fall for sob stories from men she met at bars, but her emotions were raw, and she was exhausted. She faced him fully for the first time, dark eyes tracing his somber expression.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it.

"Thanks, but it's alright." He grabbed both beers from the bartender and set hers down on the bar in front of her. "He lied about his age on the draft form and got what was coming to him for being stupid. I'm Noah, by the way." He extended a large hand for her to shake, and she accepted delicately. "What's your name?"

"Santana."

"Santana." He smiled, and clinked their beers together. "Thanks for sharing a drink with me. Are you wearing scrubs? You must work at the hospital."

She glanced down at her blue bottoms, remembering, to her monumental embarrassment, that she hadn't bothered to change into her regular pants. Had she been so out of it that she had forgotten to act like a normal bar patron? The answer to that question was a resounding 'yes'. Lately she had forgotten how to act like a normal human. What kind of nurses wandered into punk bars at one in the morning anyway? Santana slugged back some beer and set the bottle down on the bar with a heavy clunk.

"I'm a nurse," she admitted, wiping her mouth on the back of her wrist. "I work in the ER."

"What are you doing out so late?"

Santana sighed and dug her fingernail under the corner of the damp Coors label, slowly peeling it away from the bottle. "My superior sent me home early for being insubordinate."

"Yeah? That's rough."

She shrugged. "I lost my temper and snapped at her on the clock. I mean, I've been a little tense lately. She was right to do what she did, but the bus doesn't come until five, so I'm stuck here."

Noah chuckled. "Okay, I'm going to go ahead and order us another round then. That alright with you?"

It was more than alright with her. She blunt and unsociable at the best of times, but her sense for people was good. They talked for a while. Noah was harmless, a blue collar small business owner that cleaned pools by day, and patrolled the bar scene by night. He was all too happy to catch her up on the punk scene in the Mission District, and the dive bars with the cheap drink specials in the Tenderloin, even the best places to score good weed in the Haight-Ashbury. He was animated and excitable when he talked. He bought her drinks and bummed her cigarettes, and he didn't try to touch her. Not at first. At first they were just strangers having a drink, enjoying each other's company. She told him stories about the ER and complained about her Spanish mother. He recounted his strict, Jewish upbringing, and his escape from small town Ohio. It was relatively innocent fun, innocent until her third beer, when she reached out to steady herself, bracing her hand against his knee, curling her fingers curiously around the bulk of muscle there. Their eyes met in the dark, and all bets were off.

"You know you're gorgeous."

She squeezed a little harder and gave him a sly smile. "I've been told."

He reached out and slid his fingers along her forearm. "Do you need a place to stay tonight?"

Santana snorted and reached for her drink. "I don't _need_ anything from you."

"Do you _want_ anything from me?"

"What are you offering?"

"A warm bed and…" he eyed her slowly, "a warm a body."

"Oh, well!" She withdrew her hand and laid it against her breast. "Mr. Puckerman, what kind of girl do you take me for?"

"The smart, hot kind." He winked. "C'mon! Just tell me if I'm being too forward and I'll back off, but I think it would really be a shame if you missed out on all this." He gestured to himself and leaned in until they were only inches apart.

Santana laughed, a low, sultry laugh that raised goosebumps on his skin. "You're pretty forward for a pool boy."

"I seduce bored housewives all day," he smirked, "and believe me when I say that bored housewives are ambivalent, guilt-ridden creatures." He threaded his fingers into her hair, leaning in until she could smell the trace of tobacco on his breath. "They always need that extra little _push_."

"Housewives, huh?"

"Oh, c'mon." He feigned a bit of indignance. "You didn't really think I just cleaned pools all day with a face like this, did you?"

Santana laughed. "So, you're a morally bankrupt gigolo with a pool cleaning business on the side. What a lucky girl I am!"

"Very lucky," he purred. "I've had a lot of practice."

"Oh, yeah?"

"You have no idea."

"Who says I don't?"

"Do you?"

"I might, but that's none of your goddamn business."

Noah threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, God! I'm hooked! I need to have you, Santana. I do! Fuck, I really do. Will you please, please come home with me?"

She rolled her eyes. "You switch tactics faster than my mother. It's giving me whiplash."

"Is that a no?"

"It's…" she huffed and bit her lip. "Where do you live?"

"Four blocks that way," he pointed wildly, enthusiastically. "You can bail anytime and I'll drive you home. C'mon! Don't make me beg."

Santana frowned, but allowed him to lead her off the stool and toward the door. "Oh, you'll beg. You'll definitely beg. You think you're the only hot thing in this place? Well, I've got news for you, Noah Puckerman."

"Oh, yeah?" He grinned and shouldered her bag, slipping an arm around her waist. "What's that?"

"You've never been fucked by Santana Lopez."

He laughed uproariously as they stepped out into the night together, and pulled her closer, until their bodies were flush and their heads were close. She decided that she liked the attention. She decided that it was okay for him to lean in and kiss her. She decided that she needed it more badly than she would ever admit when her body immediately responded. 12 months of sleeping alone had done this. 12 months of all work and no play, no friends, no fun. She felt like a dulled knife. Voices echoed in her mind, her uncle, her mother, her grandmother. It bothered her to be wrong, almost. There wasn't much room to dwell on it as Noah's fingers crawled down her back and settled around her waist. He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and bit down softly, and it elicited a wanton moan from her that she was too slow to stifle. It felt amazing to be held by someone again, even as her defenses began to slip, even as the panic crept in. Santana pressed her hands against his chest and pushed him away, flustered and out of breath.

"Too fast?" he smiled apologetically.

"It's been a while," Santana conceded, eyes narrowed.

"Okay," he shrugged, "we can take it slow. That's cool."

"Just take me home." She growled. "Let's get this over with."

Noah laughed, but he obliged, leading her down the sidewalk with more chivalry than she would have guessed him capable of at first glance. Guys with mohawks weren't generally white knights. But Santana was surprised to find that he got her, or seemed to. He wasn't put off by her defenses or her hard words, didn't seem to mind when she got prickly and took back her space. He was happy playing the long game, happy to let her steer. He didn't complain when she stripped off her own clothes and took the lead, pushed him down on the bed, climbed on top. He was cocky. He was cavalier. He was too confident to take her insults to heart, just laid back with a smile, ready to enjoy the experience. It was exactly when she needed, even if she hadn't known it. He accepted her aggression and her frustration, enjoyed maybe a little too much, but when she finally began to lose her grip, he was ready. He grabbed the reins, rolled her over, and steered her toward a much needed release.

She crept out in the morning and slipped his business card into her bag.

/ / /

Quinn was waiting for her when she arrived at work the following evening.

"You look better," she said. "Did you make up with your boyfriend or something?"

"Happily single," Santana replied breezily, sailing into the locker room.

She deposited her stuff on the bench and spun the combination on her lock, stuffing her backpack into the locker when the latch came undone. She whirled to face Quinn as she tugged her fingers through her hair, pulling it back into a tight ponytail. The blonde nurse was leaning against the tile wall in a pair of mint green scrubs, watching her with faint amusement.

"Sorry for last night." Santana snapped the rubber band into place. "I was out of line."

"I'm over it." Quinn examined her nails. "Hopefully you are, too."

Santana fought down the sharp feeling bubbling in her gut. "I am."

"Oh, Santana!" Emma rounded the corner in powder blue scrubs, wide, nervous eyes scanning the room. They landed on Quinn and she managed a fragile smile. "Hello, Quinn."

"Hey." Quinn's eyes twinkled, and her smirk evolved into something genuine. "How are the germs today?"

"They're bastards," Emma admitted. "I hate them!" She slammed her fist into her palm very suddenly, and caused them both to jump, startled by her display of uncharacteristic aggression. "But I'll… I'll manage." She raised her hands to reveal a pair of off-white latex gloves. "I've got protection."

Quinn snorted, but her smile was gentle, almost admiring.

"Santana, I'm glad I caught you. Dr. Anderson wants to talk to you." Emma beckoned to her. "Come with me, please."

Quinn glanced at her sharply and Santana resisted the urge to shrink against her locker. As a friend of her father's, Dr. Anderson made a point to check in on her from time to time, a detail that always seemed to pique Quinn's curiosity, though they had never really spoken about it. Santana herself wasn't sure how she felt about it, that even so far from home she couldn't quite escape familiar eyes, her father's influence, and yet, as badly as she yearned for independence, the safety net was comforting.

Avoiding Quinn's hawkish gaze, she trailed the head nurse out the squeaky locker room door and up two flights of stairs to oncology. Her eyes followed Emma's twitchy gait as they walked, the way she jerked away from walls and banisters, rogue gurneys in the hallway. She wore long sleeves under her scrubs to protect her arms, and in particular, her elbows, which might inadvertently brush a germ-infested surface. Her bright red hair was pulled back tight, as always, with a tortoise shell clip and a legion of bobby pins, swept up off her skin and out of reach. She preferred turtlenecked shirts as an additional form of protection, and wore one today, even in the middle of summer. It was baffling, but the hospital was generally chilly, and she was a slender woman anyway. It didn't draw much scrutiny anymore. Her idiosyncrasies were, by now, known to all, and accepted as amusing personality quirks. After all, healthcare professionals weren't generally beacons of sound mental health. How she had become head nurse with such a peculiar aversion to contamination, however, was a mystery to just about everyone. There were some rumors that circulated, in particular that Emma's mysophobia had worsened dramatically after her divorce from her husband, and that an alleged affair with the interim director and hasty cover up explained the leniency on her random, illness related absences. Emma, herself an intensely private individual, had never confirmed or denied any of it, leaving the rumor mill to speculate with impunity.

"His office is down the hall," she said, steering Santana with a gloved hand. "At the end on the right.

The door was open as Santana approached, revealing an office in complete disarray. The doctor was perched at his desk in a blue shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up carelessly around his elbows, a light sheen of sweat gathering around his hairline. He had stripped off his white lab coat and thrown it over a rack next to the window, next to a pair of half-empty bookshelves, their contents plundered and scattered about the small room. He was leaned back all the way in his puffy leather chair, phone tucked against his ear, cord stretching out across piles of thick books, papers, and leather-bound medical tomes. Santana saw that the stacks had migrated onto the floor as well, surrounding the desk like little guard towers. The clock on the wall had been taken down, and the batteries pulled out, discarded haphazardly atop a metal filing cabinet. She glanced back at Dr. Anderson to find that his face was scrunched up in deep thought, brow furrowed.

"I heard you the first time...no, of course I don't think that…" He glanced up at her and his eyes widened in recognition. He waved her in. "We tried that… Yes, and that. Look, we're following all of the normal procedures I… Blaine-...Blaine listen to me. I don't know why the chemo isn't working. We can run some more tests, but I don't want to put too much stress on his body right now…Okay...yes." He gestured at her to sit down, and Santana awkwardly obliged. "Okay...okay, but I can't talk about this anymore right now, I have a meeting… I'll be over tomorrow, okay? Okay...good night."

Dr. Anderson tossed the phone on the receiver and groaned, removing his glasses, sliding his hands up over his face.

"Is...everything alright?" Santana asked.

"Yes. I'm fine." He shifted forward in his chair and replaced his glasses, blinking a couple of times to clear his vision. "It's my son, actually. His...friend is sick."

"I'm sorry."

"He doesn't have a good outlook, and his lesions keep getting worse. It doesn't seem like the treatments are working. Baffling." The doctor trailed off for a moment, before straightening up and collecting himself. "I have something I need to ask you." Dr. Anderson paused to consider his words. "It's a proposition of sorts."

"A proposition?" She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"One of our best ICU nurses died suddenly last night. Matthew O'Connor. Did you know him?"

"I don't think so."

"He's been sick for a few weeks, but frankly, it still came as a shock."

Santana struggled to find the appropriate words. "I'm...I'm sorry," she managed.

"Thank you. He was one of the best. The trouble is that they were already short staffed due to some recent labor disputes, and losing Matthew sets them back even further. They have already posted the position outside, but my colleague, Dr. Callaway is very much hoping to hire internally. They want someone that they can bring up to speed very fast." he straightened his glasses. "I was going to recommend you."

Santana's eyes widened. "Me?"

"Yes, you. Don't act so surprised. You're the perfect candidate for the job. Of course, then it occurred to me that it might be best to ask you first. I wasn't sure whether you were really enjoying your work in the ER. Quinn and Emma, all the nurses down there, are very capable. It's a good work environment, you know, but the ICU is… Well, right now the ICU is in a difficult situation."

Her stomach tightened. "Difficult how?"

"There have been some tricky cases lately. It has taken a toll on the cohesiveness of the staff. You're smart, and you're a workhorse, and I think that you would be a very good fit for that team, but you're still a relatively new nurse, and I don't want to send you up there unless you feel like you can handle it."

"I can handle it," Santana said quickly.

The tired doctor gave her a fond smile. "I know you can. I just want to make sure you understand what you're getting into."

"What am I getting into?" she pressed, biting her lip.

Dr. Anderson regarded her anxious expression quietly for a moment, then sighed and began to shuffle some of the papers on his desk. He moved another stack of books onto the floor, intending to rifle through a pile of documents underneath, but his back stiffened, and when he returned to view he was holding a copy of the New York Times.

"Gay cancer," he said, gravely, and passed her the newspaper.

Santana took the article in her hands and scanned the page.

 _" **RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS**_

 _By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN_

 _Published: July 3, 1981_

 _Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made._

 _The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment._

 _The sudden appearance of the cancer, called Kaposi's Sarcoma, has prompted a medical investigation that experts say could have as much scientific as public health importance because of what it may teach about determining the causes of more common types of cancer._

 _Doctors have been taught in the past that the cancer usually appeared first in spots on the legs and that the disease took a slow course of up to 10 years. But these recent cases have shown that it appears in one or more violet-colored spots anywhere on the body. The spots generally do not itch or cause other symptoms, often can be mistaken for bruises, sometimes appear as lumps and can turn brown after a period of time. The cancer often causes swollen lymph glands, and then kills by spreading throughout the body."_

"Kaposi's Sarcoma?" Santana glanced up from the paper, frowning "That's extremely rare, isn't it?"

Dr. Anderson nodded. "Read to the end."

She looked back to the page.

 _"Dr. Curran said there was no apparent danger to nonhomosexuals from contagion. ''The best evidence against contagion,'' he said, ''is that no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community or in women.''_

 _Dr. Friedman-Kien said he had tested nine of the victims and found severe defects in their immunological systems. The patients had serious malfunctions of two types of cells called T and B cell lymphocytes, which have important roles in fighting infections and cancer."_

"Immunological systems," Santana echoed, glancing up again. "That sounds bad."

"It is bad. Very bad. Here." He rifled through some more papers and came up with a thin booklet. "Read this, too. It's an MMWR report from last month."

"MMWR?"

"Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It's a publication from the CDC."

Santana accepted the journal and began read quickly.

 _" **EPIDEMIOLOGIC NOTES AND REPORTS**_

 _PNEUMOCYTOSIS_

 _Pneumonia - Los Angeles_

 _In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection. Case reports of these patients follow."_

She glanced at Dr. Anderson. "You think this is part of the same disease?"

"Perhaps." He shrugged. "A lot more testing needs to be done, but it sure seems strange, doesn't it? All these men getting sick all of a sudden?"

"Patient 1: A previously healthy 33-year-old man developed _P. carinii_ pneumonia and oral mucosal candidiasis in March 1981 after a 2-month history of fever associated with elevated liver enzymes, leukopenia, and CMV viruria…" she read aloud, and then paused. "He died two months later. No evidence of neoplasia."

"That's right."

"So no tumors in those patients, but they still think it's linked? What would cause both cancer and pneumonia, and…" she peered at the article again, "and oral fungal infections?"

"Something I don't want to catch." He retrieved the journal and the newspaper and reshuffled them into the pile on his desk. "Whatever it is, it seems like it's affecting their immune systems. These guys are catching stuff that virile young men shouldn't catch. I've only seen KS in my elderly patients, and even then it's very treatable. These guys come in with spots and they're dead in months. It's nasty stuff."

Santana looked off to the side, battling a sudden knot in her chest.

"So," Dr. Anderson cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. "That's what you'd be dealing with."

"I've handled some pretty tough cases in the ER," she said, straightening up. "Lots of burn victims and trauma patients. So, I think I could handle this."

"But the ICU is different, Santana." His expression was grave, cautioning. "You'll watch a lot of people die, slowly and painfully, and there won't be much you can do but help them die with dignity. It's not the same manic pace you're used to downstairs. There will be downtime to dwell. You'll get to know these people. It will take an emotional toll on you."

The knot in her chest tightened.

"It's a difficult job already without the threat of a mysterious disease scaring everybody. Three ICU staff members have quit already, and two more were fired for refusing to treat homosexual patients."

A frown of disgust twisted Santana's smoky features. "Why won't they treat them?"

Dr. Anderson sighed again, and this time the sound was frustrated and weary. "It's a couple of things." He stroked his beard pensively. "To some extent it's that they already dislike homosexual people. They consider them deviant and distasteful. However, and this is only my opinion, I believe that they are mostly just afraid of being infected. This disease is mysterious, and we don't know anything about it yet. We don't know how it is transmitted, what causes it, how it affects the body. It could be airborne. It could be passed through fluids, or contact. We just don't know."

She grimaced and looked away.

"What it comes down to, ultimately, is that there are people who are unwilling to risk their lives for a population that they consider depraved."

"And what do you think?" she asked, tightly.

The doctor drew himself up, lifting his chin in manner that was somewhat regal. "Regardless of what I think, these men are human beings and they deserve treatment just like everyone else."

"What does Dr. Callaway think?"

"He is in agreement with me."

"Okay," she nodded, and her shoulders relaxed a bit.

"What do you think?" he pressed. "Can you handle it?"

"I'm not a coward," she said fiercely. "I can definitely handle it."

"I know you can." Dr. Anderson's smile was intense, enigmatic. "That's why I picked you."

He studied her for a long moment and his demeanor changed. It was subtle, but unmistakable. She had seen that expression on her father's face many times before, a potent mixture of pride and concern. He wanted to trust her, she could feel it, sense it. He wanted to send her in and watch her succeed, watch her tear the place up, rise through the ranks. But there was fear there, too, like a little black seed taking root, fear rooted in experience, in memory, in suffering. There was fear of potential disaster. An iron lump lodged itself low in her throat, and she tried to force it down, but it wouldn't budge. Even her body knew that she was about to accept a dangerous job. It was going to be life altering. Doubts swirled in the back of her mind. No matter her conviction, Santana was forced to admit that she was nervous, too, that on some level she understood why others had quit their posts. She steeled herself, met the doctor's gaze steadily, and refused to let her nerves bleed through, always a stalwart defender of her pride. She was ready to prove herself capable.

"Please recommend me for the position," she said, breaking the silence.

Dr. Anderson leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. "Are you sure?"

Santana lifted her head as she responded, looking him straight in eye. "I'm sure."

/ / /

She was still sure as she boarded the bus early the next morning, and rode through the city with her arms folded resolutely across her chest. She was still sure as she trekked the last mile home from the bus stop amidst the lingering fog. She was less sure when she explained the decision she had made to her uncle over breakfast.

"Wait, wait, wait." He dropped his fork, and it clanged loudly against his plate as he gaped at her incredulously. "Okay, so let me get this straight. They're transferring you to the ICU prematurely so you can take care of contagious homos?"

Santana bristled. "They're giving me an opportunity to a good thing."

Sergio gaped at her. "Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm not! And like, what's the big deal? Half my patients are contagious." She rolled her eyes at him. "I work in a hospital, tio!"

"Yeah," he waved his hands around angrily, "but not with some super bug!"

"I never said it was a super bug!" Santana protested. "We don't know even anything about it yet!"

"Exactly!" Sergio slapped his palm against the table. "You don't know _anything_! It could be dangerous! You could get sick! You could get my kids sick!"

"What the hell?!" Santana exclaimed, leaning over the table. "I haven't gotten your kids sick yet, have I?"

"Maybe not yet, but-"

"Because we sanitize, and we wash our freaking hands, you moron!"

"Did you just call me a moron?!" Sergio shot back, incredulously.

"Yeah, because you're acting like o-!"

"You don't get to call me that! I'm your uncle!"

"You're acting crazy!" Santana growled and sat back in her chair, crossing her arms defensively. "Jeez, can you hear yourself? You sound paranoid."

Sergio clenched and unclenched his fists slowly. "I just don't understand this decision, Tana. You're willingly putting yourself in harm's way. You're…" he huffed, "you're putting yourself, and your family in danger, for a bunch of… I just don't get it."

"I didn't ask you to get it." Santana blinked the sudden, unexpected sting out of her eyes. "I just wanted you to be happy for me."

He clenched his jaw, gazing back dully. "I wish I could be happy for you."

She hugged herself and looked away. "Is this gonna be a problem?"

"...I hope not."

Sergio stood abruptly, pushing out his chair with a screech. His face was full of thunder, his brows drawn tight into a shallow 'v', his shoulders hunched. He didn't look at her again. Santana watched apprehensively, wearing a baleful expression, as he grabbed his plate and his cup and stormed into the kitchen. When he came out again to grab his suit jacket off the back of his chair, she had already retreated to her room.

* * *

 _A/N: I added some citations because old habits die hard._

*Altman, Lawrence K. "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals." The New York Times, 3 July 1981. Web. 24 July 2015.

*United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. _Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 5, 1981_. 21st ed. Vol. 30. Atlanta: CDC, 1981. 1-3. 16 May 2001. Web. 24 July 2015.


	5. Chapter 4

_9.22.15_

 _Oh my gosh, you guys. I absolutely posted this story too soon. First of all, I had no idea that work was about to kick my butt into next year. I am totally, completely over this re-org! And second of all, historical fics take a lot of research! I probably should have spent more time gathering materials and incubating, just so that I wouldn't have kept you all waiting for so long._

 _I have some good news, though. I spent the last couple of weeks plotting this story out from start to finish, so now I at least know where this is going :)_

 _Anyway, without further ado, I present the long-awaited chapter 4!_

 _-Rex_

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

In hindsight, Santana realized that it should have been obvious that something weird was happening in the ICU. Now that she was aware of it, she heard the whispered conversations in the locker room, and noticed the furtive glances from the staff when certain, male patients came through the ER time and time again. Quinn and Karen were quick to roll their eyes and point out that she worked with her head down, so focused on whatever she was doing that she was oblivious to her surroundings. It was true, of course. In college she had often studied upstairs while parties raged below. Nothing short of a fire would have pulled her away from her books. Now, however, she found that she couldn't tune out the noise, the rumors, the murmurs, the fearful looks. The hospital was abuzz with a quiet panic. The air seemed to hum with the faintest crackle of static electricity. Everyone was on edge. The subtle, but sudden and unexplained, changes in policy weren't helping. Things were happening with the board. A member had resigned unexpectedly, and it had all been hushed up. There was a communal sense that important, perhaps damning, information was being withheld by the hospital administrators, and even though Santana was reasonably certain she knew what it was all about, she found that she was just as uneasy.

She began to doubt her decision to transfer.

By the time she mustered up the courage to tell Quinn, she was almost positive she had made a horrible mistake, and it was too late to take it back. The blonde's sour expression and dismissive tone didn't exactly help assuage her misgivings. By the end of the night, the other nurses were regarding her with the same appalled expression. Only Emma, herself too afraid to transfer into a ward with people dying of disease, seemed cheerful and supportive, squeezing Santana's shoulder with a gloved hand as she offered her congratulations. Santana struggled to return the smile. She went home in the morning and choked on her own dread, too nervous to eat, too wired to sleep.

Quinn's disapproval stung. It bothered her that it did. It bothered her that she cared. Why did she care? She tried really, really hard not to care, but the stress was starting to get to her. With things strained both at work and at home, Santana felt like she was shuttling back and forth from one tense environment to another. The headache behind her eyes was nearly permanent.

The Saturday before her last week in the ER, she broke down and called Noah on the house phone, desperate for a change of pace.

"I never thought I'd hear from you again," he admitted, equal parts sheepish and excited.

Santana rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm feeling pretty generous tonight, so I'm giving you a chance to prove to me that you're more than just a one hit wonder."

"What did I do to deserve all that, huh?"

"Deserve?" She scoffed. "You don't deserve anything. This is a gift from the kindness of my heart."

"I'm not worthy!" Puck said dramatically.

Santana snorted.

He picked her up at eight and took her downtown. She packed an overnight bag and ignored the look on her uncle's face when she flounced out the door. They hadn't spoken again about her new position, and she wasn't exactly fine with it, but she couldn't think of anything else to say. She wasn't going to apologize. He clearly didn't think he was in the wrong either. Her Aunt Sharon could only do so much tip-toeing and peacemaking. Things were tense at home and at work. If she didn't get out she was going to lose her mind. So, Santana climbed into Noah's truck and willed herself to forget about it.

He drove a brand new red Ford, freshly waxed and polished, and he bragged about it as he pulled onto the highway, shifting up and leaning on the accelerator just to show off.

"Isn't she beautiful? The pool business is finally paying off!"

Santana just smiled, because more than anyone else in her life at the moment, he was happy to see her. He chatted on about the latest crop of miserable house wives, cooped up in their St. Francis Wood mansions, making desperate passes at Puck as he tried to clean their massive pools. She didn't really care if his stories were true. She laughed and stuck in dry comments where necessary, and let him take her out to the bars.

They eventually landed outside a gritty pub called 'The Black Kilt'.

"Oh!" Puck's fist shot into the air. "Hell yeah!" He pointed to a name splashed across a flyer in red letters. "I fucking love this band!"

Santana cocked her head to one side. "What's with the violin? That doesn't seem very punk-ish."

"Okay, well, it's not," he admitted, shrugging, "but these guys aren't exactly punk."

"What are they?"

"Some kind of folky Irish metal."

"Folky Irish metal?" she laughed. "What the hell is that?"

"A whole lot of awesome." He squeezed her hand. "C'mon, let's go in! You have to see them!"

Noah flipped a ten dollar bill at the bouncer with a buzz cut and bulging muscles, and flashed a wolfish smile. Santana just giggled as he dragged her through the splintering wooden door into the dark, atmospheric pub, threading through an eclectic crowd of people wearing everything from the usual leather and black, to plaid kilts, corsets, and knee high socks. A woman in blonde pigtails and a green dress bowled past them and Santana stared in confusion, clinging tighter to Noah's arm.

"She's wearing a dirndl!" Santana shouted over the noise. "Isn't that supposed to be German?"

Puck frowned back at her. "What the hell is a dirndl?!"

"Oh my god!" Santana squealed, jabbing her index finger at the stage. "Is that a harpsichord?!"

Puck followed her finger. "What the hell is a harpsichord?!"

He dragged her to the bar and ordered shots of whiskey, throwing his back the instant it hit counter. Santana wasn't far behind him. He queued up a second round, this time waiting to clink glasses with her before slamming it down. From then on it was beer, a bottle for Santana, a pint for himself, sloshing over the rim of his glass as he ripped a wad of bills out of his pocket and paid. They had only just begun to sift through the crowd again when Santana spotted a familiar head of blonde hair, pressed up against a booth with a drink and a boozy smile on her red lips.

Santana's eyes widened. "Holy shit, is that Quinn?"

"Who?" Puck squinted at her.

The blonde picked that exact moment to turn and catch Santana's gaze. Her eyes widened in surprise. She excused herself from a conversation with some people to her left and made her way over.

"Santana!" she laughed, cheeks rosy as she wrapped a loose arm around the Latina's shoulders. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Santana said. "You like this band?"

"I have no idea!" she giggled, "but Sam said we should go, so- oh, Sam!" She waved over her shoulder to a broad-shouldered man with a blonde ponytail. "Sam! Come meet Santana!"

"Hi," he said, grinning broadly as he shook Santana's hand. "Sam!"

His smile was so wide it was almost blinding, and she had to force herself not to stare. "Hi. Santana. I work with Quinn."

"Oh, I know!" He winked. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Really?" she asked, surprised.

She turned to Quinn, who smoothly changed the subject by extending her hand to Noah.

"Hi, I'm Quinn."

"Nice to meet you, I-"

"This is my boyfriend, Noah," Santana said, jumping in quickly. She ignored the startled look he gave her and hooked her arm around his waist.

Quinn smirked. "Nice to meet you, Noah."

The boys shook hands while Santana pretended not to notice Quinn's appreciative gaze on Puck's forearms. She caught Santana's eyes and giggled a bit before leaning in to her ear.

"You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend," she said, easily drowned out by the noise in the bar.

"It never came up," Santana replied, shying away gracefully.

"He seemed a little surprised to be named," Quinn observed, her practiced nonchalance layered thinly over razor sharp curiosity.

Santana cursed herself silently. Wouldn't it have been fine to say they were on a date?

"It's just the first time either of us have acknowledged it in public," she explained, turning her eyes away when she noticed that Puck was listening. "We've been keeping things under wraps."

Quinn donned one of her trademark, beauty queen smiles and laid a delicate hand across her chest. "Why, I'm flattered that I'm the first one you told."

Santana huffed and rolled her eyes. "Don't tell anyone at work yet, please."

"Don't worry. It's a secret between friends."

Santana looked at her sharply. "What?"

"What do you mean 'what'?" Quinn laughed. "You've earned it. I'll miss your bitchy jokes."

"Gee, thanks," Santana said, though in truth she was dumbfounded.

After a couple minutes of polite conversation, mostly Sam explaining enthusiastically that he knew one of the guys in the band, Quinn gave him a rather sloppy peck on the lips and suggested that they get closer to the stage. She turned pointedly to Santana, silently inviting her to join, but Santana declined, throat just a little too dry as she cited a general discomfort in tight spaces. Puck gave her a knowing look. Quinn only raised her glass in acknowledgement, and sifted off through the crowd. Sam waved goodbye jovially. Moments later the bar roared as a roadie stepped up to the mike to run through a sound check.

Puck grabbed Santana's arm and pulled her in close. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing." She snatched her arm back. "I panicked."

"You panicked?" Noah glanced up, searching for Quinn's head in the crowd. "Why?"

"Friendly competition between the nurses at work," she said, though in truth she had no idea.

Quinn's sharp eyes did funny things to her. She was a puzzle that Santana found unsolvable, and worse, she only ever had half pieces to work with. It was vexing, the effect Quinn had on her. She was intelligent and cunning, sure, but neither of those things were particularly intimidating by themselves. Santana had more than enough of both qualities to go around, and by now she was used to being surrounded by smart people. What Quinn had in spades, however, was a voracious appetite for control coupled with a cast-iron will, and a dizzying arsenal of weapons to use on anyone that kept her from getting what she wanted. It was intimidating, and the worst part, Santana decided, was that she didn't know what Quinn wanted, nor would she, probably, until it was too late.

"I don't understand women," Noah said under his breath. "Why do you all pretend to like each other? What's the point?"

"Keep your enemies closer?" Santana shrugged. "I don't know."

"Do you actually like her?"

Santana killed her beer and set the empty bottle on the ledge behind her. "Yeah."

"Really?"

"Yes, _really_."

The crowd roared murderously at the roadie as he left the stage again, flipping them off as he disappeared into the back. Everyone was, apparently, getting very impatient.

"She seems a little scary," Puck mused, finishing his pint, depositing his glass next to her bottle on the ledge.

"Oh, totally," Santana nodded vigorously. "I think she's secretly kind of nuts."

"So are you, you know," he said fondly, glancing at her sideways. "A little nuts."

Santana smiled, because the alcohol was soaking into her muscles and softening her edges, loosening her tongue. "Is that why you like me?"

"Hell, yeah."

Noah pulled her close as the band stepped onto the stage, cheering loudly with everyone around them, squeezing her tighter, pressing a kiss against her temple. Santana closed her eyes and let herself feel, his arms around her, around her waist, across her shoulders, her back tight against his chest. It was August and the room was packed with bodies and it was hot, sweaty, stifling, but she couldn't find it in herself to mind the heat. She bent down and let her lips linger on his forearm, smiling to herself when he shuddered and kissed her neck.

Boys just couldn't help themselves.

She wasn't any better, and she knew it, addicted to the feeling, in love with feeling sexy, in love with feeling wanted. She didn't care. She was okay with it. She was okay with Noah holding her like her owned her. It would be okay if he did for a night, so long as she could rise in the morning and take herself back, shake it off and return to her life with all her pieces present.

It had never been a problem before.

She smiled to herself and cuddled back against his chest.

She wasn't too worried about it either way.

/ / /

Santana was working triage on her last night in the ER when the sound of general commotion from the lobby pulled her away from her paperwork. General commotion was never a good thing at 12:30 am, and she rushed toward the lobby, searching for a source.

What she found set off alarm bells in her head.

There were three of them together, a tragic, frantic trio that had clearly just limped in off the street, a man quivering in the arms of a woman and another young man as they struggled to hold him upright. He was taller and broader than either of them, skin dripping with beads of sweat, blonde hair plastered to his forehead, white shirt soaked through, clinging to his chest and abdomen. He was a wreck. The blonde woman had his arm slung across her shoulder, shouting for help, face pale and panicked as she met Santana's gaze across the floor. Everything around her seemed to still and slow. The air thickened until Santana was sure she couldn't breathe it, until it felt like swallowing lung-fulls of pool water. Blue eyes drilled into hers, burned her, dismantled her, silently pleaded for her to help. Santana's mouth opened, but no sound escaped. The pounding in her ears was getting louder, the woman's shouts were becoming more desperate, and still, Santana's feet remained frozen to the floor.

"Please help!" the woman pleaded.

A ragged breath passed across Santana's lips, and then the man's eyes finally rolled back into his head, and he began to convulse.

The world around her sprang to life again with a roar, adrenaline punching her square in the chest like a live defibrillator. Santana turned and dashed back to the desk, yelling for help from the nurses in the back. People in the waiting room gawked, craning their necks, some even standing to peer around each other. Fear and curiosity reflected back at her from their gazes, looking on at the train wreck they couldn't turn away from. Santana corralled Dr. Fisher as he returned from lunch, spitting a rapid description of the scene out front as he tugged on his coat. However, when they returned to the scene with a gurney and an extra nurse, Dr. Fisher took one look at the man on the ground and froze in his tracks.

"Santana," the doctor grabbed her arm and held her back, "wait."

She swallowed, shoes squeaking on the linoleum as she came to an abrupt halt. There was something in the tone of his voice that caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. He stared at her for a moment, studying her, and the feeling only increased, crossing from apprehension into dread. Her eyes wandered ahead of her through the hallway, toward the convulsing man, held in place against the floor just barely by his terrified companions. It was a scene from a drama film. It scraped away at something deep inside of her, in the darkest crevices where the true nightmares lived, breathing, sleeping, biding their time. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Long, blonde hair flew in the woman's face and stuck to her skin where perspiration had begun to gather. She was flushed from the exertion, like the other companion, the slender man with brown hair and alabaster skin, who bore no resemblance to her except for the shared expression of fear on his features. They pushed and they pulled, uttering rushed reassurances to each other, to the man choking and writhing between them, but even together, they struggled to keep him still.

At last, the doctor spoke. "Wear these," he said, pressing a pair of latex gloves into her hand. "I know it's not standard protocol, but we don't know what we're dealing with here."

A ragged groan echoed through the corridor, and the body on the floor began to spasm violently. The woman was yelling something now, screaming terrified pleas to the hospital staff over her shoulder as she held him down. Santana didn't know what to do. The woman's wide, blue eyes met hers again and it felt as though her legs had been filled with lead. Her skin was crawling. She couldn't move.

"Come on! He's seizing!" Dr. Fisher was pressing against her back. "Santana! Your gloves! Let's go!"

She staggered forward, suspended for another moment in shock, wavering on the edge the fray with the chaos and the shrieking, with the doctor urging her forward. He was already shouting instructions, but she couldn't understand them. Everything was chaos, and light, and terrible, terrible sound, and she couldn't think or breathe or…

It hit her like a sledgehammer.

This was a panic attack.

And then the rubber band snapped back, and Santana sprang into motion like a wind up toy, pulling on the gloves, stumbling toward the desperate trio, moving with blinding speed to carry out Dr. Fisher's booming orders.

"Stand back!" she shouted.

Her voice didn't even sound like her own.

She helped the others lift his body onto the gurney, and they strapped him down.

 **/ / /**

Rosie helped them with the intake paperwork, but Santana listened through the curtain. Her heart was still fluttering and there was a weight in her stomach that wouldn't lift. She had a feeling she knew exactly what was wrong, and her thoughts danced around the CDC report sitting on Dr. Anderson's desk upstairs. The blonde woman, who, she had learned, was the patient's sister, was speaking softly, sniffling quietly in between sentences.

"We were at a bar and he started having trouble breathing. So, we took him outside, but he just kept wheezing and he felt really hot and clammy. I wanted to take him home, but Kurt kept saying we should bring him in… I'm glad we did."

"We're glad you did, too," Rosie said, and Santana could hear the smile in her voice. "It looks like he has pneumonia, but we'll run some tests on him tonight, and hopefully we'll have a clearer picture in the morning."

"Okay," his sister sounded relieved.

Santana heard the click of a pen and the rustle of paper against a clipboard.

"Does Tyler have any history of pneumonia?"

"No. Strep throat when we were kids, but that's all."

"Has he ever been hospitalized before?"

"Once for a broken arm when he was in high school. He was on the football team."

Rosie hummed agreeably. "Yes, it's such a violent sport. My son rolled his ankle last week and he's been walking with a limp ever since."

"Oh, is he alright?"

"Oh, yes, dear." Rosie's pen scratched against the paper form. "He'll be just fine, but he's had to help me with the washing because he can't manage the yard work, and he's very eager for it to heal up."

The woman giggled softly, and a strange chill ran down Santana's spine. "I can imagine."

"So, no other times, then? Just the once?"

"No, not that I know of."

"Any pre-existing medical conditions or disabilities?"

"No."

"Any allergies?"

"No."

"Any history of smoking, drug use, or heavy alcohol consumption?"

"No for the first two," the sister said warily. "He drinks, of course, but I've never seen him get out of control with it."

"Would you say he's a heavy drinker?"

"No, not at all."

"Alright."

A brief silence settled over them as Rosie scribbled out the rest of her notes. Santana shifted her feet, suddenly becoming aware of a cramp in her leg. She made to move away, satisfied that she had heard everything she needed to, but then Rosie spoke up again, and there was a peculiar curiosity in her tone.

"What about the infection?" she asked lightly, too lightly. "Is he taking any antibiotics for it?"

There was a slight pause. "What infection?"

"I see in his chart that he has thrush in his mouth." The sound of pages turning carried through the curtain. "Do you know anything about that?"

"No," the woman said, sounding troubled, confused. "He never said anything to me."

"That's alright, dear."

Santana closed her eyes and took a deep, stabilizing breath. Her chest felt tight and her eyes burned. The symptoms matched. There was no longer any doubt in her mind. She stepped away from the curtain and walked off before she could hear anymore.

/ / /

She slept fitfully the next day. Her body was tired, but her mind wouldn't settle. She stole a few hours after breakfast, floating between vivid, disorienting dreams, but by the mid afternoon she had completely given up.

It was one of those perfect, late summer days, the last of its kind before the mild child of autumn arrived in California.

Santana sat by the window in the attic and rolled a joint on her knee. The sunlight was warm and waning, the breeze soft, a cool exhalation from the salty ocean. The wind ruffled her hair and blew the bits of green askew on the paper where she was meticulously trying to fold them, but she couldn't be bothered to reposition herself. She pinched one end and twisted the other, stuck it between her lips and fumbled for her lighter. The flick-flick of the silver zippo was easily one of the most satisfying sounds she could think of as she took a deep, slow inhale, and let the smoke sit in her lungs. Time slowed for a second. She listened to the birds chirping in the tree out front, and the motor of a sports car rolling past on the street below. Santana waited until her eyes and her chest was burning before she finally exhaled, coughing and sniffing like a first time smoker. She eyed the thin little joint suspiciously before taking another hit.

As she was breathing out again, the phone rang.

Sergio had given her a line to her room, and she plugged and unplugged it at will depending on her sleep schedule. The only people that really called for her were her parents and the hospital, Noah having received strict instructions not to call her at home, so it wasn't generally something she worried about. Today she was even less concerned than usual. She let it ring. Her uncle would undoubtedly be ecstatic to test out his new voicemail machine, anyway. She watched the smoke curl languidly between her fingers.

The phone rang again.

Santana sighed and stamped out her joint on the windowsill, frowning when she realized that she would have to cover up the burn. She ran her fingers through her hair and swung her legs over the side of the bed. There was a possibility that her relatives, who were out shopping for the day, were trying to reach her at home for some reason. She bent down to pick up the receiver.

"Hello?"

" _Santanita?_ "

Her eyes widened slightly. "Papá?"

" _Sí, feliz cumpleaños,_ _corazón. Cómo estás_?"

She smiled lazily and leaned back on the bed, curling the telephone cord around her finger. "Bueno, bueno. Me estoy relajando en casa hoy."

" _Ah, de veras?_ _Soy envidioso de tu_ _." He paused. "Where is my brother?_ "

"Out with his family."

" _I see."_ He added a note of false levity to his tone, something she knew concealed his displeasure. " _Do you have any plans for your birthday?"_

"Nothing in particular," she said, picking at a hole in the knee of her jeans. "I might go out with a friend later."

" _Sergio isn't taking you to dinner?"_

Santana frowned. "I don't think so."

" _Did he offer?"_

Her chest tightened. "Um, well, I've been working the nightshift so we don't see each other very much."

Silence poured down the line and she knew for sure that her father was angry. " _But you're home now aren't you?_ "

She hesitated. "Sí."

" _And he is gone, no?_ "

Her eyes slipped shut and she bit her lip. "Sí."

" _Then that's bullshit," her father said irately. "He had the opportunity to ask and he didn't. Is he not treating you right, mija?_ "

"No!" her eyes flew open. "No, it's not like that. We just had a disagreement is all."

" _A disagreement? You mean an argument?_ "

"Sort of." Santana chewed on her thumbnail. "Something like that."

" _Did you do something?_ "

She rolled her eyes. "No, papá. I took a job in the ICU and he's upset. He thinks that I will bring home germs and get my cousins sick."

" _Que ridiculo!"_ he exclaimed. " _That's completely ridiculous! Why would you be any less of a threat staying in the ER? Unbelievable! What is he thinking?!_ "

Santana glanced longingly at her smouldering joint. "I don't know."

Her father was upset, and she wasn't sure why she had told him anything in the first place. She knew that she could have lied, could have danced around the truth. He wouldn't know whether or not Sergio had taken her out. He was 1,000 miles away in Portland. It would have been easier that way, less conflict. But Santana couldn't deny the seed of bitterness growing her heart. She bit her lip as she listened to her father rage on the phone, noting, with indignant satisfaction, that it felt really good to have someone in her corner, especially a doctor. Everyone else could look at her like she was crazy, Quinn, the other nurses, Uncle Sergio, Aunt Sharon, but her daddy was proud of her. It was enough.

" _I'm going to talk to him_ ," he said, concluding a lengthy and colorful tirade. " _My little brother needs somebody to talk some sense into him_."

Santana felt a tiny spark of panic in her chest. "No, please!"

" _Mija?_ "

"Please don't say anything to him!" She tugged anxiously at her hair. "Please?"

" _Santana, I won't let him treat you like this. I have to say something. Yo soy tu padre!"_

"I know," she soothed. "I know, but I'm an adult now, and I want to sort things out with him on my own."

A long pause followed this declaration on the line, a long pause during which Santana more or less held her breath. If Sergio gave her father any details about the types of patients she would be working with in the ICU…

" _Okay_ ," he agreed, hesitantly, " _but if I hear anymore about this I'm picking up the phone right away._ "

She sighed with relief. "Deal."

" _Okay, mija, okay_." His voice lost a bit of it's acidity, and Santana smiled to herself. " _Enough about my brother, I want to hear about you. How are things going at the hospital?_ "

Santana's smile grew. "Oh, well, in that case I have a lot to tell you."

* * *

 _A/N: Hey, if ya'll notice any missing sentences or general funkiness, could you please drop me a line? I think that ff sometimes truncates paragraphs when I copy my text documents over._

Thanks in advance!


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